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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Chairman, I know that the committee has worked hard to get a bill that is going to come into the numbers. Unfortunately, I disagree with the $1.070 trillion number that is in the Bipartisan Budget Act. I like the Budget Control Act's number of $1.040 trillion.
A $30 billion difference doesn't sounds like a lot when you are talking about trillions of dollars, but I tell you, to my constituents, with $19 trillion debt, it does make a difference.
The funding level of this bill is $37.444 billion. I will be offering an amendment, which I offer every year to our spending bills, to cut 1 percent across the board. That would yield us $374 million in budget authority savings, and outlays savings of $222 million.
I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but it is simply taking one penny out of every dollar that is appropriated. And that, quite frankly, is the type of scrimping and saving that our constituents and American families are having to do all across this country in order to make their budgets work.
I am fully aware of the strong opposition that many have to making those 1 percent across-the-board cuts. As I have offered these amendments, many times I am told that cuts of this magnitude go far too deep, that they would be very damaging to our Nation's security, but I kind of agree with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mullin when he said the greatest threat to our Nation's security is our Nation's debt.
I think we ought not to be putting future generations at risk, and we should be working toward reducing what our Federal outlays are every single year and working toward balancing the budget. It means yes, we have to go in and cut that penny out of a dollar and save it for our children and our grandchildren to get this Nation back on the right track.
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Chairman, indeed, the Appropriations Committee does deserve some credit. But also, passing the Budget Control Act with the 2 percent across-the-board spending reduction in discretionary spending deserves some credit also, because it shows the effectiveness of what those cuts can do.
Governors use this, Democratic and Republican alike. They do it because their States have balanced budget amendments, and they can't crank up the printing press and print the money.
I would encourage my colleagues to take a step toward fiscal responsibility, get inside and cut one more penny out of a dollar. We can do that on every appropriation that we have.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
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