Sylvester Turner: “It has been a pleasure to hear the gentleman from Colorado express his points of view, and I believe there are many…”

“It has been a pleasure to hear the gentleman from Colorado express his points of view, and I believe there are many areas where we find common ground, particularly in the commitment to try to hold down the level of government spending. I think we share a commitment to reducing the Federal debt, although I think the Blue Dogs have a more aggressive debt repayment schedule than does the President under his budget plan. I notice that the gentleman from Colorado started off his remarks tonight talking about fear, and I picked up, during the gentleman from Colorado's presentation, a little fear expressed on his part, one that I think is shared by many Members of Congress and perhaps drives some of the actions that we see taking place here; and that fear that was expressed by the gentleman was the fear that we might continue to have greater government spending and for that reason we need to pass a tax cut before a budget I believe I heard the gentleman say. I would simply suggest to the gentleman that under the budget act that this Congress is governed by, we have, by law, said that the process that we will follow is to pass a concurrent budget resolution before we consider taxes and spending programs.”