Don Nickles: “Most agree we need to do something to grow the economy. There are different ideas, and I compliment my colleagues for…”

“Most agree we need to do something to grow the economy. There are different ideas, and I compliment my colleagues for some of the ideas. We have some very good ideas on both sides. Maybe we can come up with some of the best. I wish to talk about our plan a little bit and also make a couple of comments on the highway bill, as well. We are dealing with a budget. We have a deficit, and a lot of people ask, why do we have a deficit? Revenues have declined, and declined substantially. In the year 2000 revenues were over $2 trillion, and last year they were $1.85 trillion. That is a reduction of $175 billion. If you look at the history of the United States, almost every year there has been some increase. Hardly ever have we seen a decrease 2 years in a row. That is a decrease together of 9 percent. That is a reason we have a deficit, coupled with the fact expenditures are up. Revenues went down 9 percent and expenditures went up by 12 percent. I am not casting blame. That is the situation and where we are today. Right now we spend more than we take in. That is a $160 billion difference and the projection is worse for this year. How do we get this number to grow? This is a real reduction. What caused that? We look at gross domestic production and the economy really declined. It started declining in the year 2000. We had robust economic growth through the mid-1990s.…”