Roy Blunt: “It is disappointing in that, as the Senator says, it is not even that hard to figure out what we could be doing or what…”

“It is disappointing in that, as the Senator says, it is not even that hard to figure out what we could be doing or what we should be doing or what is the fundamental work of what we should be doing. There are things the Constitution says we can't do, such as initiate a tax bill. So we are spending a lot of time on tax bills that, even if we passed one, would be unconstitutional. The House has the right to start those bills, and they would say: We are not even going to deal with that because it is outside of the Constitution. It is not as though this is a hard formula. How do you get spending under control? The No. 1 domestic priority in the country today should be more private sector job creation. But the No. 1 priority for the Federal Government would be, how do we get spending under control? How do we begin to pay off debt rather than add to debt? And the only way we can do that is to debate the spending bills. The Senator mentioned the former head of the World Bank a minute ago. I heard him mention a few days ago that several years ago after leaving the governorship, he spent some time in Australia and made good friends there--one of the former Prime Ministers of Australia. And I will let him tell that story. Everybody in the world knows the best and strongest economy and workforce in the world is ours, if we just do the right thing. And the right thing is not that hard to figure out.…”