Angie Craig: “I come this morning to speak about a need for fiscal responsibility. Over 200 years ago, George Washington warned that…”

“I come this morning to speak about a need for fiscal responsibility. Over 200 years ago, George Washington warned that ``Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it can be a dangerous servant or a fearful master.'' Even when government functions properly as a servant, Washington observed, it is dangerous. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about--and to urge a need for something to happen in this Senate and in this Congress--fiscal responsibility. While Congress has been talking about spending measure after spending measure over the past several weeks, Americans have been talking about Congress' loose spending of their tax dollars. What many lawmakers have referred to as the fiscal policy of the Government has come to mean nothing more than the Government's dangerous tendency toward fiscal recklessness. Fiscal responsibility is premised on the simple concept that less is more. Less government spending means more freedom for individual Americans and increased levels of economic activity and rates of economic growth for the country. Several studies confirm this. A Public Finance Review study indicated that: ``Higher total government expenditure, no matter how financed, is associated with a lower growth rate of real per capita gross state product.'' A study by the Journal of Monetary Economics found that: ``There is substantial crowding out of private spending by government spending.…”