On the recordFebruary 10, 2014
I appreciate you providing this historical context because, as you indicate, a lot of times on this floor we tend to focus on the rhetoric of the day and not the facts of the matter. As you have well illustrated here, if it were not for the Bush-era tax cuts, which are the biggest contributing factor to the debt and the deficit--and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--we probably would be in a much better position to address the domestic needs in this country and to have the type of economic investments to help grow our economy, put people to work, grow and build up our infrastructure, help our roads, our highways, our schools, the things that matter here in the United States. But yet money has been obligated by previous administrations, enacted by Members of Congress before you and I got here, and now this Congress and some on the other side want to hold the process hostage and add a new set of demands and conditions to that process for items that this administration or current Members of Congress and our constituents, who are expecting us to do our job, did not have the decision to begin with. So I appreciate you giving that historical perspective, and I hope that my colleagues on the other side will listen to the facts of the matter and move away from this drama of the brinksmanship and the political games that, unfortunately, are done too often to distract from the realities of the issues that you brought forward.
