Kevin Roberts: “Thank you, Madam President. I will try to wrap up. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator who wishes to speak. I will…”

“Thank you, Madam President. I will try to wrap up. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator who wishes to speak. I will try to get this done. We were meeting with the President. I was bringing up the issue of regulations, but the rest of the people were talking about a grand bargain and what could happen. The President said on tax reform: Why can't we start with a clean page? Basically everybody agreed. And then he said we could also take mortgage interest, charitable giving, retirement, and we can means-test those and start from there. I thought, oh boy, here we go again--income redistribution. That is not the answer. I would just say that before we enter into any negotiations, we ought to make sure that the Budget Control Act and the fiscal cliff bill, which were negotiated in good faith with the Vice President and which have resulted in lower spending, in the first actual decreases in spending by the Federal Government since the Korean War. That is unbelievable. So in going to negotiate, I don't want to give up in regards to those decreases, and I don't want a situation where the President has said: I gave to you on CPI so I need $800 billion in revenue. The distinguished majority leader has said it is $1 trillion. So if we are going to raise $1 trillion in revenue, then here we go again and whatever negotiations come down the pike are going to be more spending and more taxes. People are just figuring out what their tax bill is going to be with ObamaCare.…”