Orrin Hatch: “My friend from Alabama, as he always does, has arrived precisely at the critical point. We need a fiscal policy that is…”

“My friend from Alabama, as he always does, has arrived precisely at the critical point. We need a fiscal policy that is balanced. Its remedies must respond to the causes of our current fiscal calamity. In the most recent fiscal year, spending hit, as I said, over 25 percent of GDP. That figure is easily more than 20 percent above the historical average. It is unbelievable we are spending that much. Spending is fueling the deficits we are facing. The President's budget reaches into the American people's pocketbooks with taxes trending at or near historic highs in an anemic effort to close the gap. The other side of the ledger, spending, is not dented. It remains far above any reasonable historic average. Nobody can refute that fact. These are facts. I am concerned about it. I will tell my colleague that.”