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Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2012

Floor Speech

Date: April 14, 2011
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Senior Citizens Entitlements and the Safety Net Budget, Spending and Taxes Health Insurance Government Budget and Spending

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for his heroic work on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, history walks with us as we debate this budget. History offers us not a single example of a nation that has ever spent and borrowed and taxed its way to prosperity, not one. But it offers us many, many examples of nations that have spent and borrowed and taxed their way to economic ruin and bankruptcy.

And history is screaming this warning at us: that nations that bankrupt themselves aren't around very long because before you can provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare, you have to be able to pay for it, and the ability of our Nation to do so is now in grave danger.

Yesterday, the President attacked this budget because he says it lowers taxes on the rich while raising Medicare costs for seniors. In fact, this budget ends many of the loopholes that have allowed some of the wealthy to pay less than their fair share of taxes, while it lowers the overall rate for those who have paid more. And since 82 percent of small business income is affected, economists tell us that the tax relief provided by this plan will produce a million new jobs next year. I say to the gentleman from Maryland, that's the healthy way to produce new revenue.

The President apparently believes that by taking more money from small businesses, somehow they will create more jobs. That is the economic folly that misguides this administration.

As my friends to my left know, Medicare and Medicaid will collapse if we continue business as usual. This budget saves those systems by putting them on a sound financial foundation. It reverses the growing trend of doctors refusing to treat Medicare patients, and it assures future seniors a far wider choice of physicians and plans than is available today.

This budget brings Federal spending back under control, and it places our Nation on a path so that when my children retire, their retirement systems will be safe and secure and their Nation will be debt free and prosperous.

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