Mike Conaway: “Mr. Chairman, the other side has been very good tonight, as they are most every night since they have been in the…”

“Mr. Chairman, the other side has been very good tonight, as they are most every night since they have been in the majority of retelling and retelling over and over the sins of the past. Quite frankly, those sins are hard to deny, given the empirical evidence is there. We have spent a lot of money and raised the size of this government. That being said, though, my colleagues' arguments seem to rest on the premise that, because the Republicans were spending more and screwing this thing up, that somehow this gives the Democrats, gives them some license to continue that process, to continue building on this growing government and spending more money in fiscal 2008 than we will bring in. Now, we have heard some arguments that this is not deficit spending, but, quite frankly, there will be more money spent under this budget in 2008 than we will take in. In the simplest form, that is a deficit. I am not, personally, a big fan of across-the-board cuts. I agree with some of the arguments said on the other side that it's mechanical, but, quite frankly, we need to start somewhere on the path to fiscal responsibility, and this is a modest start down that path. I urge support for that amendment.”