David Thomas: “I have been listening with great attention to what we are talking about. Certainly, there is nothing more important…”

“I have been listening with great attention to what we are talking about. Certainly, there is nothing more important before us now than the budget. We have heard all kinds of explanations, and we will hear many more. We will argue about the allocation over time. But it seems to me, as I think about it, that the idea of a budget is where we really set our priorities. There is more to a budget than simply the question of where we spend every dollar. What we do with the budget is, we put into reality the things we would like to see in our Government. What size Government would you like to have? What do we do with respect to our working with the State and local governments? How does that fit? What do we do about taxes? Is there something we want to do there? I look at it as really an opportunity for us to, philosophically and from an ideal standpoint, look at why we are here and what it is we want to accomplish. For those who want a simpler and smaller Government, does this budget do that? I don't think so. This is an increase in size. This is more Government. This is larger. What if your goal was really to move more and more of the choices and more and more of the responsibility closer to people and State and local governments? Does this budget do that? No, I don't think so.”