Mike Conaway: “I have recently introduced H. Res. 690, which would require this body to begin setting priorities. That is something the…”

“I have recently introduced H. Res. 690, which would require this body to begin setting priorities. That is something the Federal Government, and Congress in particular, do not do a very good job at. In fact, we are really lousy at it, but it seems to me if we are able to set priorities on new spending, then we ought to be able to practice what H. Res. 690 would do which is require the House that anytime we create a new program of any size or scope, that we would have to, as part of that enacting legislation, eliminate an existing program of the same size or spending. We have tough choices to make, but we just do not make those choices very well. You can look at the CBO's Web site. They publish a 50-year study of what they think this Federal Government will look like in the year 2050. I have a grandson that will be about 53 years old at that point in time. The government that he will inherit, left unchecked, left unchanged, will be one that consumes 50 percent of the gross domestic product in this country, and there has never been a free market, free enterprise system anywhere where the central government could take half and the rest of us passed on the other half. We prosper by having growth in the standard of the living, opportunities and others kinds of things. So I believe that the growth in this Federal Government is the single biggest threat that we face as a country to our particular way of life.…”