Mark Neumann: “In 3 short years, by getting spending under control, we are now running a surplus. In 1969 when we ran a surplus it was…”

“In 3 short years, by getting spending under control, we are now running a surplus. In 1969 when we ran a surplus it was $3 billion. The surplus this year is 80 plus, so we are talking about the most significant surplus perhaps in the history of this country this year. That has come about because we got government spending under control, coupled with a strong economy. A lot of times people say, well, the strong economy did it all. I have been out to a lot of town hall meetings all over Wisconsin and I ask them all a question out there in Wisconsin, and the question goes like this: Which one of these 2 things do you think is more likely to happen? A martian spaceship lands outside and comes in and joins us; they go back to Mars, and they snicker, and I tell them not to jump to conclusions. Because the second choice is that Washington gets $100 billion of unexpected revenue and does not spend a nickel of it. Then they all snicker and they take the martians in most cases. In fact, that has happened out here. When we look at this controlled government spending, it is important to know that that controlled government spending occurred in the face of a very strong economy, which meant additional revenues coming in.”