On the recordMarch 25, 2015
I thank the gentleman. Madam Chairman, I would just make the point that as we have this debate on the so-called Progressive budget versus the House budget, that in fact it is Chairman Price's committee budget that is indeed the progressive budget. And I say that for this reason. If you stop and think about this notion of being progressive, it is to yield to innovation, to change to flexibility in one's own choice in the way that one does something. And I don't think that there is anything more sacred in that regard than the way that one spends one's own money. If we were to go with this alternative, what we would see on the tax and spending side is going from 18 percent of GDP up to around 22 percent of GDP. Those are sort of amorphous numbers, but what does that equate to in 2025? It equates to about $800 billion. $800 billion means that you could go and fund the State of South Carolina government 115 times. In other words, you could take that product, multiply it times 115. Think about what we spend on, for instance, transportation here at the Federal level. You could fund it 60 times. It is a big number by any account. And fundamentally, it is a question of equity. Should 435 folks here in this Chamber decide how folks' money is spent, or should they decide how their money is spent?…
