Jay Inslee: “I came to peace with my decision on this bill this weekend when I was holding my 2-year-old grandson, Brody, who was…”

“I came to peace with my decision on this bill this weekend when I was holding my 2-year-old grandson, Brody, who was checking out the Christmas tree. I became focused on the real question before us: Is it right to put $858 billion of debt on that kid's shoulders? The answer is ``no'' for three reasons. First, this bill represents an old and unsuccessful experiment in supply-side economics. It has failed time and time again. In 2001, it was going to create jobs. It didn't create a single net job. Most of us remember when the first President Bush called this type of scheme ``voodoo economics.'' Do you remember that? Well, this is deja vu voodoo economics, and we have no interest in erecting a fiscal monument to the failed policies of George Bush. Second, let's be honest about what this deal is--a bipartisan deal gone bad. It's a case where both sides handed out candy to their favorite constituencies, put the candy together in one pile of $858 billion of deficit spending and said, We will sober up, just not today. We've got to have time to eat our spinach, not just our candy. Stop kicking this can down the road. True bipartisanship will happen when both parties confront fiscal reality and become responsible. Third, we have to face the music as to what this deal is. It's just another case of using an overextended credit card. We cannot build an economy based on consumer credit card spending, which is what got us in the hole in the first place.”