Marshall Sanford: “I rise, as well, in opposition to the substitute amendment, and I do so because I am struck by the ways in which you…”

“I rise, as well, in opposition to the substitute amendment, and I do so because I am struck by the ways in which you can, at times, agree on the diagnosis but disagree on the cure. I think we would all agree, Republicans and Democrats alike, that we have a real problem in the way that wages have indeed stagnated over the last 30 years. A lot of my Democratic colleagues are nailing it in terms of that diagnosis. The question though, is the cure. And the question there is: Can we fix that problem by raising taxes by $2.7 trillion? Can we fix that problem by increasing spending by $6.2 trillion? Can we fix that problem by increasing the debt by $3.9 trillion and, in essence, having a budget that never balances? I would argue, no, and I would say, instead, what we have to look at is the basics, which we have been dancing around, which is the mathematic formula that says: Savings drives investment, which drives productivity gain which, ultimately, impacts standard of living or wages. And what we don't focus on enough is this notion of the investment part of investment; if you want to increase productivity, you have got to increase investment. In fairness to my Democratic colleagues, part of that is public investment, but another part is private. What my colleague from Virginia was just getting at a moment ago was, for 50 years, regardless of tax rate, 90 or 28 percent, the take to government has been about 18 percent of GDP very consistently.…”