On the recordMarch 21, 2013
Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from South Dakota. I am pleased to be here to discuss this very important issue, the matter of our budget, for this great Nation and to follow my distinguished colleague from Nebraska. I have had a tremendous opportunity to work with both of these Senators. Senator Thune and I have been friends for many years and have worked on many issues important to this country and the Dakotas. Likewise, I have had an opportunity to work with Senator Johanns when I was Governor of North Dakota; he was Governor of Nebraska. I want to pick up on some of his comments, but I am going to start out in a broader sense; that is, we are here today to debate a budget for this country. It is something we need to do. It needs to be a budget that moves the country forward. It needs to be a budget that helps us meet the challenges the American people want us to address. It needs to be a budget that sets the right priorities. It needs to be a budget that will help us truly reduce our debt and our deficit, and that means it needs to balance. It needs to be a budget that balances in a timely way. It needs to balance without raising taxes. We have millions of people in this country who want a job. They want to get back to work, and raising taxes will absolutely hurt our economic growth and hurt their ability to get a job and to get back to work. At the same time we are talking about reducing our deficit and our debt.…





