WASHINGTON, DC — Congressman Jeb Hensarling (TX-05) the second ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee and a member of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform issued the following statement in response President Obama’s announcement that he intends to nominate Jacob Lew to serve as Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“I welcome Mr. Lew back to the fight for fiscal accountability in Washington. Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff and current Co-Chairman of the President’s Fiscal Commission Erskine Bowles, has accurately likened our current fiscal predicament to a cancer that is destroying our country from within.  Mr. Lew has a important and daunting task of restoring fiscal responsibility before him, given that President Obama’s budget submitted this year averages deficits of nearly $1 trillion over the next ten years and triples the debt held by the public in 10 years; firmly putting us on the path to become Greece without significant reforms. 

Despite the daunting task at hand, I am anxious to hear Mr. Lew’s ideas on how to solve our nation’s spending, deficit and debt crisis, and look forward to working with him.”

Congressman Hensarling, one of the House GOP’s leading voices on controlling federal spending, is an author of the Spending Limit Amendment to the Constitution to create a spending cap with teeth by limiting the federal government to 20% of the national economy every year.