David Thomas: “there is a subjject that is extremely important. It is important to all. Frankly, having been at home this weekend, as…”

“there is a subjject that is extremely important. It is important to all. Frankly, having been at home this weekend, as most Members have, I heard more about it probably than any other issue. That is spending, of course; the amount of spending we are taking on, and the Federal Government challenges to do something about the increase in the deficit we are bringing upon ourselves. The challenges make it very difficult. As Fred Thompson said once: It is like going to heaven; everyone wants to go, but nobody wants to make the changes necessary to get there. That is the way it is with the budget. It is an obligation to do more to control spending and to control the size of the Federal Government. We have that obligation. We have had some difficult times in the last couple of years which have brought about some necessary spending. We had September 11, the war on terrorism, the gulf now, and other emergencies, all of which require spending. I understand that. However, we have to treat this as a family or business would when an extraordinary thing happens: We take care of it, but, nevertheless, the costs for the family and business continue. Then we must find a way at some point to offset the costs. That is where we are now. Things have not all been bad over the past year. We have decreased the deficit by $100 billion. We never hear much discussion in the media about that. The fact is, we have made some progress. We have done some other good things.…”