On the recordFebruary 2, 2012
I understand the concerns of my friend across the aisle, but I'm telling you, this is a great day for Congress, for America. Going back to 1974, the most liberal Congress in America until the time when Speaker Pelosi took the gavel, in 1974, rules for CBO were put in place making it difficult to ever make actual tax cuts to help the economy grow, as John F. Kennedy made clear and showed by his actions. But that was also a time when Congress thought it would be a good idea to create automatic increases of every discretionary department's budget in the Federal budget, automatic increases. I mean, there are times when increases would be appropriate, and there are times when it would not be. But why should the government not have to deal with financial issues, like any responsible American, like any responsible family? There will be times when you should have to make cuts. There will be times when you should have to make increases. But what we saw through the 1990s, back during my days when I was a judge, I heard a guy named Rush Limbaugh bring up why do we have this automatic increase, because then when conservatives try to slightly decrease the amount of increase, they're said to be making draconian cuts. Well, I made a mental note. When I got to Congress in January of '05, I couldn't believe it, to find out that we still had those automatic increases every year.…
