Gilbert Gutknecht: “last night when we closed debate on the rule, I was trying to figure out over the weekend an analogy which would…”

“last night when we closed debate on the rule, I was trying to figure out over the weekend an analogy which would demonstrate what this debate is really all about. There are really two debates going on here. One is inside the Beltway, and one is outside the Beltway. Inside the Beltway we hear people saying we cannot tighten that Federal budget belt one notch. Let me demonstrate. What I had my staff do was go out and get three belts. We put them together. What we have here is a nine foot belt. Every foot on this belt represents $1 trillion worth of Federal spending over the next five years. That is $9 trillion. That is a nine foot belt. I do not think anybody in this House could actually wear this belt. All we are asking in the Kasich budget is for our friends on the appropriations committees to tighten this belt one notch, one inch out of a nine foot belt. Yet we hear from some of our friends here inside the Beltway that that cannot be done, that nine feet is not enough, that there is no waste, there is no fat, there is nothing left in the Federal budget that can be trimmed so that we can tighten this belt even one notch.”