Richard Hudson: “I rise this evening to offer an amendment to the Energy and Water Appropriations bill that would cut spending back to…”

“I rise this evening to offer an amendment to the Energy and Water Appropriations bill that would cut spending back to the fiscal year 2008 level. While I appreciate the work of the Appropriations Committee in crafting this important bill that does decrease spending, we must all recognize that a cut of $50 million is a rounding error here in Washington. My amendment makes an across-the-board cut of 7.48 percent to the bill in order to decrease the amount back to the fiscal year 2008 level. The Congressional Budget Office confirms my amendment would reduce budget authority by $1.34 billion. Defense accounts are exempt from these savings because this House just addressed defense programs in the National Defense Authorization Act a few months ago. Mr. Chairman, we are on a path to a horrific debt crisis in this country. When I ran for Congress, I repeatedly said the first step we must take to reduce spending and get our fiscal house in order is to go back to 2008 levels, and then let's go program by program and find savings, find duplicative programs that we need to cut, find the waste. Again, Mr. Chairman, we have got to get our fiscal house in order, get ourselves back on track. My amendment does just that, allows us to return to a point where we can finally get serious about making real substantive cuts to begin to pay down our debt and save future generations from this horrific debt crisis that we are on a collision course with as things now stand. Mr.…”