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On the Issues: National Deficit

As someone committed to fiscal responsibility in our government, I share the concerns many of you have regarding our current budget deficit.  For far too long, the former Republican leadership in Congress and the Bush Administration were complacent in allowing poor public policy and misguided spending priorities to become a driving force behind mounting federal deficits and an ever increasing national debt.  Additionally, trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy and billions of dollars for a deteriorating war in Iraq have resulted in the President proposing repeated cuts to vital domestic priorities such as healthcare, education, and the environment.  The Democratic Budget Resolution passed in 2007 has set the country’s finances back on track by balancing the budget by 2012, and it does this without sacrificing programs vital to our national security, our economy, and most importantly to the social welfare of the American people.

President Bush inherited an estimated ten-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion when he arrived in office in 2001.  After the five years of Republican control through the end of 2006, that same ten-year period (2002-2011) was projected to show a budget deficit of $3 trillion under the President’s policies, a swing of $8.6 trillion in the wrong direction.  Despite these reckless spending habits, policy makers failed to meet pressing defense and homeland security needs and ignored critical domestic priorities.  Significant homeland security gaps remained on our borders, in air travel, and at our ports.  Domestic investments were cut or squeezed, denying college aid to families, undermining healthcare access, and preventing needed investments in energy independence.  The Republican leadership led us on an imprudent and unsustainable path.  The current state of our economy, our standard of living, our domestic tranquility and our national security are results of their misguided policies and leadership. 

At the beginning of the 110th Congress on January 5, 2007, the House of Representatives began the enormous task of restoring the nation's budgetary health by instituting new budgetary rules that enforce fiscal discipline through the reinstatement of the "PAYGO" system, an enforcement procedure that requires all new spending or revenue legislation be fully offset to make it deficit-neutral.  Also included in the rules package was a measure to reduce pork barrel spending through earmark reform.  These measures represent the vital first steps on a path towards fiscal well-being, and I am proud to have voted for this legislation.  As we proceed through the 110th Congress, my colleagues and I will examine all aspects of our government's fiscal and financial policies, including mandatory and discretionary spending priorities, tax reforms and debt reduction.  Only by comprehensively addressing our stewardship responsibilities will we be properly positioned to pass along to our children a stronger country than the one we inherited.