ICYMI - Hensarling Calls for Spending Reform to Replace Dangerous Defense Cuts on House Floor
WASHINGTON – House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) delivered the following remarks on the House floor today in support of the House Republican reconciliation plan to replace dangerous and arbitrary defense cuts with common sense spending reductions:
“Mr. Speaker, it’s important for us to remember why we are here. We are here because the president’s policies have failed: a trillion-dollar deficit, a second trillion-dollar deficit, a third trillion-dollar deficit, and now a fourth trillion-dollar deficit – putting the nation on the road to bankruptcy. That’s why we have a reconciliation bill before us.
“I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about deep cuts. The deepest cuts that are happening in America today are to the family budgets of bread winners who are either unemployed or underemployed due to the economic policies of this administration. We just got the news last month: third month in a row where job growth is down. We’re not even keeping pace. We have the lowest labor force participation rate in 30 years because people have given up on the Obama economy. Those are the deep cuts that truly count.
“Republicans have a plan for America’s job creators. We want to get this economy going, and as we do, as people go back to work, they get off of the welfare checks on to the paychecks. That’s what counts. And so Republicans have brought forth a reconciliation plan that says, ‘You know what? Maybe we ought to quit spending money we don’t have, and maybe this will help provide part of the confidence that job creators need to put America back to work.’ And I’m very proud of the work that was done on the Financial Services Committee, among other things, to end the perpetual Wall Street bailout fund that was put in by the Democrats and the Dodd-Frank bill, because if you lose your ability to fail in America, you lose your ability to succeed, and the American people are tired of the bailouts.”
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“Mr. Speaker, the American people know that after the nation’s first, second, third, and now fourth trillion-dollar deficit, the American people know after the worst employment record in 30 years, that the problem is with the president’s economic policies. And ultimately this debate comes down to this: Do we have a debt crisis because Washington spends too much, or because the American people are under-taxed?
“My colleagues on the other side of the aisle say a nation can tax its way into economic growth, tax its way into economic prosperity. They want to impose taxes on 40 percent of the income on small businesses and somehow think they will create more jobs. Mr. Speaker, if you gave them every job-harming tax increase that they have asked for, it’s roughly 16 percent of the additional $11 trillion of debt that the president wants to put on this economy, our children, and our grandchildren. The American people know we can do better. It is time to quit spending money we don’t have for jobs the stimulus program never creates.
“And so I’m proud to be a part of this reconciliation package which will save the draconian cuts that are aimed at our war fighters and their families, and be able to begin the process of ensuring that a great nation lives within its means and that we can give the next generation greater hope, greater opportunity, greater economic growth. And I urge all my colleagues to support this reconciliation bill.”
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For additional information, contact:
House Republican Conference Press Office (conferencepress@mail.house.gov)
