Joe Barton: “last Saturday I took my daughter Kristin and my wife Janet to Philadelphia, the birthplace of freedom in this Nation. I…”

“last Saturday I took my daughter Kristin and my wife Janet to Philadelphia, the birthplace of freedom in this Nation. I stood in the room where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. In the beginning of that declaration it says: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among those rights are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those are very famous words that continue to echo down through the centuries. I stand on the floor of the House of Representatives today to issue the following declaration of budget accountability: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all items in the budget should be on the table, that enforcement mechanisms are necessary and that to implement those mechanisms we should have a bipartisan approach to budget enforcement. The bill before us today does that.”