Chris Sununu: “when we set out to put together this budget, our goal was to put together a strong wartime budget, a budget that met the…”

“when we set out to put together this budget, our goal was to put together a strong wartime budget, a budget that met the priorities laid out by the President during his State of the Union Address, to fund and win the war on terrorism, to fund our homeland security needs, and to get our economy moving again after the attacks on September 11 and the impact it has had on our economy and not just in Washington and New York but across the country. We worked hard to put together a budget plan that meets these priorities and in particular on the economy, putting together a budget that lays the groundwork for strong economic growth not just as we move forward in the year but out 2 years, 5 years and 10 years. We put together a budget that fully funded the worker protection act signed by the President earlier this year, extending unemployment benefits and giving businesses, large and small, incentives to invest in new technology, new productivity, accelerating the depreciation that they could take. We have got to remember that jobs are not created here in Washington by legislators. Jobs are created by entrepreneurs and risk-takers and investors. In my home State of New Hampshire, over 60 percent of the jobs come from small businesses. By giving them that incentive to invest, we give them the opportunity to create jobs for others. We made a commitment to implement a national energy strategy to reduce our dependence on oil imports from the Middle East and from overseas.”