Orrin Hatch: “I compliment the senior Senator from Kentucky for his good remarks on the floor and for allowing me that unanimous…”

“I compliment the senior Senator from Kentucky for his good remarks on the floor and for allowing me that unanimous consent request. We are coming down to the wire here. We will soon be voting on a proposal that would couple some deficit reduction with an increase in the statutory debt limit. There are some positive features in this legislation, and the Senate's minority leader, the Speaker of the House, and conservatives throughout the country should be commended for insisting on them. First, the President asked for a clean debt limit increase, and conservatives refused. They held the line and made clear that any increase in the debt limit required matching deficit reduction. Second, having lost the fight over a clean debt limit increase, the President insisted on a balanced approach to deficit reduction, by which he meant reducing the deficit by raising taxes. But conservatives again fought this back. They knew that the primary driver of our debt is spending. Regardless of the President's talking points, nondefense discretionary spending is at historic levels. We are set for our third straight trillion dollar deficit. We have a national debt of $14.5 trillion, and the President's budget would give us $13 trillion more in debt. The answer to this is not giving the government more money to spend. And third, conservatives resisted the effort by the President's allies to push most of the deficit reduction in this package down the road.…”