Jason Chaffetz: “I first want to applaud and thank the committee for their work. They've reached the laudable goal of reducing the…”

“I first want to applaud and thank the committee for their work. They've reached the laudable goal of reducing the overall expenditures by $4 billion. And that is much appreciated and noted. I just happen to think we can do just a little bit better. I'm looking at the committee report regarding the committee's recommendation on the Community Development Fund, specifically the Community Development Block Grants. And I read: ``This is $396 million above both fiscal year 2012 and the budget request.'' So you have the President making a budget request, and you have last year's expenditures. What this amendment does is reduces by $396 million to get it back to where we were. Again, I think the President is even also on the same page. Now, Madam Chair, we have to recognize what a dire financial strait we're in in this country. We have to understand that we have a multitrillion-dollar challenge. We talk about a trillion with a capital T and it's hard to get your arms around it. But if you were to spend a million dollars a day everyday, it would take you almost 3,000 years to get to $1 trillion. So when we're racking up a trillion-plus-dollar deficit each year, when our national debt at the end of this year will approach $16 trillion, when we're spending more than $600 million a day in interest on our national debt, we're going to have to cut some spending. To actually bring back and reduce this to the proper level, I think would be more appropriate.…”