On the recordNovember 28, 2011
I listened to part of what Senator Reid had to say as we opened the Senate today. I was struck by the fact that so many people are unemployed and our economy is still barely growing, that there probably is not any firm objection to trying to alleviate some of the pain by continuing a process where we lessen the tax burden through a decline in the Social Security tax. I don't think that is going to be the issue with many Senators. The question is, do we do that by raising taxes on other people or by getting rid of waste. I had an interesting phone call today with somebody I trust and have been talking to for 3 years, who actually predicted everything that has happened so far. He predicted what is going to happen in Europe, and he predicted the fact that ultimately there will be default in Europe on government bonds. There is no way they grow themselves out of it or no way we loan them enough money to buy them enough time to get out of it. The only way is to trim their spending, which they should have started 2\1/2\ or 3 years ago. The same lesson applies to us. I think some things that are factual ought to be brought up. We had, over this past week, the inability of the committee to come to an agreement on $1.2 trillion. Therefore, there is going to be a sequestration. The interesting thing, on the way to the farm, is that when you have the sequestration carried out, there will actually be no decrease in spending in the Federal Government.…





