On the recordFebruary 15, 2011
We're bleeding cash, piling up liabilities, and trying to postpone the day of reckoning; and as a result, America is in a financial free-fall. In 4 quick years, Congress made what was a spending problem into a spending crisis. We on this side of the aisle wanted to create jobs; you wasted time on a health care reform bill that did not reform health care. While we wanted to build an economy, you wasted time building government. Unfortunately, many in Washington, D.C., especially on Capitol Hill, are in denial. My colleagues, it's time to stop pretending that the well of wealth in this country is bottomless. We must address spending now, or it will be worse next year. Two years ago, the Congress passed a stimulus bill totaling nearly $1 trillion. Unfortunately, now we know it did not stimulate. And we know a lot of money went for programs, not necessarily bad programs, but programs that couldn't stimulate the economy. But the biggest travesty of Washington's stimulus spending spree is not that it was a waste of money; it's that the money has been stolen in plain sight from our children and grandchildren.
