On the recordFebruary 3, 2010
Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I certainly appreciate his leadership tonight on an issue that is of great concern to every American. Every American who has children, every American who has grandchildren and are wondering, What is Washington doing drowning them in a sea of red ink? Again, when you say, How much is enough, we are already there. So I think it's been somewhat of a surreal experience for the American people as of late to see Washington go mad. Never in the history of our Nation, do I believe, have I seen such an explosion of spending of deficits and debt. As a lot of the public know, the President of the United States on Friday came and spoke to the Republicans in the House, and I give the President credit for doing it. I think it speaks well of his character that he would come and speak to us, something that our own Speaker I don't believe has ever done. I had the opportunity to speak to the President at that exchange, and I asked our President, I said, Mr. President, your last budget that you submitted tripled the national debt over 10 years and took the cost of government from its historic level of roughly 20 percent of our economy up to 25 percent. I mean, we haven't seen such levels of government since World War II, the cost of government relative to the economy. I asked the President that question, and the President didn't answer. The President declined to answer the question on Friday.
