Jeb Hensarling: “Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and it's an important point to make. Simply because, as opposed to leading…”

“Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and it's an important point to make. Simply because, as opposed to leading, too often, frankly, we see the President, we see the Speaker, we see our colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying, Well, the truth is, you Republicans spent too much money. Well, guess what? I agree. But only Congress, only Congress can spend money. Congress has the power of the purse. The only money the President can spend are those monies that are authorized by Congress. Now, the President can propose. The President may be given pots of money by Congress that he can allocate. But, ultimately, it is Congress that controls the power of the purse under our Constitution. Now, we had 12 years where Republicans controlled Congress, wrote the budgets, wrote the spending bills. And I wasn't proud of the deficits that occurred in those years, but they averaged about $104 billion a year.”