Sylvester Turner: “But as the charts shows, under your budget in 2013, the interest on debt we will be paying, the most wasteful government…”

“But as the charts shows, under your budget in 2013, the interest on debt we will be paying, the most wasteful government spending, is $656 billion in 2013. That is more than we will be spending under our budget on all of national defense, which is shown in the blue, which is $529 billion in fiscal year 2013. So the reality is that those of us on the Blue Dog side tonight believe that deficits do matter, and that it is wrong to pass on this kind of debt burden and this kind of interest payment to the next generations. And as the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) said, it is important for us to work together. But to work together we have got to have an agreement that there are two ways that this debt continues to rise, and that is by spending or by continual pursuit of tax cuts that we cannot pay for. And I am one who believes it is wrong to ask those young men and women to go over there and fight for us in Iraq and tell them when they come home and get in their good years of earnings that they are going to have to pay the costs of that war because we charged it. So I really think that we have got a philosophical difference here with your side of the aisle saying that I have never seen a tax cut that I do not like, and we will cut taxes no matter how much we can afford to cut them. We Blue Dogs love tax cuts, and we want every tax cut we can afford. And back when we had a projected $5 trillion surplus, I voted with you for that tax cut. But it is different now.”