Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. RICE of South Carolina. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm honored to serve on the House Budget Committee. I'm honored to advocate on behalf of this budget.

There's one thing for sure: we can't keep going the way we are. If you look around the world, if you look at countries like Cyprus, Spain, Portugal and Greece, you will see the consequence of unrestrained spending.

The Republican plan balances in 10 years. The plan offered by the Senate never balances. And when we say ``balance,'' we mean matching revenue to spending, not spending more than you take in. When our colleagues across the aisle talk about balance, they use it as a code word for a tax increase.

The Republican plan offers protections across the spectrum of American life. It offers our seniors the protection of making our promises good in Social Security and Medicare. No one will deny--OMB will tell you and the CBO will tell you--the Medicare trust fund is going broke. It will expire in 11 short years; and the longer we wait to deal with that, the worse the problem becomes.

It protects our middle class through tax reform and through repealing the ObamaCare law with its onerous regulations and taxes. It will structure our system for economic growth. We will stop hemorrhaging American jobs overseas, and we will bring American jobs back to these shores. It's one thing if we lose jobs because of low wages overseas. We don't ever want to compete in that arena. It's another if we lose jobs because our government is inefficient, bloated, and expensive.

Finally, it protects our most vulnerable. It protects our young people. I agree with then-Senator Obama when he said it was immoral to continue to incur these massive debts. Of course, since he said it, our debt is multiples of what he was decrying at that time.

We are piling mountains and mountains of debt on our children and our grandchildren to fuel our addiction to spending. It's got to stop, and it's got to stop now.

I'm proud to stand for this Republican budget, and I urge its passage.

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