On the recordJune 30, 2011
I come to the floor this afternoon to lend my voice to the others who have been here--my colleagues--to talk about the need to come to the table and come up with an agreement around how we are going to deal with raising the debt limit by the August 2 deadline and include some sort of package to address our debt and our deficits. I listened carefully to my colleague and friend from Indiana, and I think we agree on a lot of what he said. I certainly agree that both sides of the aisle have been working hard to look at ways we can address this issue. I agree we need Presidential leadership to address this challenge we are facing. That is why I was so pleased to see the President come out yesterday and say, very strongly, that in order to address this, we are going to have to put revenues on the table, make sure they are in the mix, because we cannot get there without looking at revenues, with just looking at cuts to the budget. So I think there is a lot of agreement. But every negotiation I have been part of means that every side has to give a little. So drawing a line in the sand and saying: We are not going to look at revenues at the same time we are looking at spending cuts is not the way for us to solve this challenge. Now, we all know that negotiations are ongoing between the President and leadership in both the House and the Senate. They are looking at all kinds of measures to reduce the deficit and raise the legal debt limit.…
