On the recordApril 13, 2011
My impression is that he should have a responsibility to do that and do it for Congress. Last week, there was going to be a major speech--last week or the week before--on energy at a local university. He went and made a speech on energy, and the headline was that it was the same old speech on the same old issues, and very little new was there. So the concern today is, we are not hearing anything in front of Congress. It is a speech at a local university. I am hoping to hear what a real vision is. What is the roadmap and the specifics? The other Chairman of the debt commission--you mentioned Erskine Bowles--the other was Senator Al Simpson from Wyoming. He was quoted today to say: We need specifics. If the President just talks in generalities, that is not going to go very far. I think specifics is what the Senator just outlined. As the ranking member of the Budget Committee, you would actually like to see numbers on a piece of paper that can be scored, and we can go look through it and say: Will this work? Will this not work? How do the numbers add up? Let's get into the specific details because that is what we are looking at. When you have a nation that is spending $3.8 trillion or $3.7 trillion and only bringing in $2.2 trillion, the problem is we are spending too much.
