On the recordJanuary 20, 2011
I'm a businessman. After my military career, I founded two small businesses. Before I came to Congress, I was the chief information officer for a business, a global manufacturing company; and I sat at the table with our executive leadership team, and we talked about how do we increase the value to our shareholders; how do we make our company more profitable; how do we put ourselves in a position to be able to invest and grow. There are two sides to that formula. On one side, you've got spending. On the other side, you've got revenue. There is a balancing act. Controlling spending, we've talked about. We've got to stop the out-of-control spending here in Washington, and we're going to address that in this Congress. But how do we increase the revenue? That is what you've been talking about here for the last few minutes. And you're exactly right, it does not come through tax increases; it comes through letting Americans and businesses keep more of their money because that builds economic buying power, that builds confidence.
