Jim Sensenbrenner: “The reason we have a big deficit is not due to a lack of tax revenue; it is due to the fact that Congress spends too…”

“The reason we have a big deficit is not due to a lack of tax revenue; it is due to the fact that Congress spends too much money. Now, let me repeat that. The deficit and the debt are not caused by a lack of tax revenue. It is because there is too much money that is authorized and spent right here in the Congress of the United States. This proposed constitutional amendment will give us the discipline that we have not had, as we have sat and watched the deficit go up and up and up and up and away. It is the responsibility of Presidents of both political parties that this has happened, and maybe it is time for us to tell colleagues now and in the future and Presidents now and in the future that the time to put things on the cuff is at an end. I would say that doing what we have done, which means spending money on ourselves and sending the bill plus interest to the next generations, is bad economics. But it is also immoral. Now, I have a grandson who is a little bit more than a year old, and unless Congress stops doing this, he is going to end up having a debt that will boggle the mind that he and his contemporaries are going to have difficulty meeting. So what do we need to do? Number one, we need to stop passing bloated omnibus bills. I voted ``no'' proudly on the omnibus bill, which busted the budget and added to the debt. We need to start getting honest about the fact that entitlement programs are spiraling out of control.…”