Roy Cooper: “Thank you. I thank my good friend from Arkansas, and I appreciate your excellent summary of our fiscal situation.…”

“Thank you. I thank my good friend from Arkansas, and I appreciate your excellent summary of our fiscal situation. Because Americans lead busy lives, we were happy to get a little bit of good news last week, or what we thought was good news. The President and the administration certainly built it up as if it was good news. I am glad that the deficit is looking a little smaller than the White House had predicted. That is good news, and I appreciate that. But it is still very important for Americans to put that in perspective. As my friend from Arkansas points out, it is good news, and it is not the largest deficit in American history; it is only the fourth largest deficit in American history. So that is something to be grateful for. But it reminded me a little bit of telling somebody, hey, the good news is your cancer is in remission. Well, that is good news. It is good news the cancer is in remission, but the bad news is you still have cancer. What we are concerned about as Blue Dogs is not a temporary deficit. Sometimes the Nation has to run a temporary deficit. What we are concerned about are permanent structural deficits, deficits that grow beyond our possible ability to repay the debt, deficits that strangle economic growth, that prevent us from building a stronger country for our kids and grandkids.…”