Pete Sessions: “I wish to share some thoughts about the bipartisan Budget Control Act which passed through the House and is now here…”

“I wish to share some thoughts about the bipartisan Budget Control Act which passed through the House and is now here, and we are going to have a cloture vote on it in the morning. I appreciate the hard work which Chairman Ryan and Chairman Murray put into that. It is a complicated and important task. But I am not going to be able to support it. I am the ranking member on the Budget Committee. I have dealt with these issues, and Chairman Ryan and Chairman Murray and I have all talked about them for a number of years. There are a lot of things which are important as we work through this. The proposal before us would increase spending, increase taxes and fees, and it would violate the core promise Congress made when passing the debt ceiling in 2011. In August of 2011, we told the American people that if they allow us to raise the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion, we would cut $2.1 trillion in discretionary spending, essentially over the next 10 years. We would try to reach a bigger agreement. But if we didn't, we would cut money through the discretionary accounts: Defense and nondefense. No agreement was reached. The automatic cuts went into place. I think we could modify those reductions in spending in a way which makes them less harmful and gives the agencies and departments-- particularly Defense--much better ability to meet the reductions in spending we asked them to meet, without doing unwise damage as I think we probably are today.…”