Huizenga: Long-Term Problems Require Serious and Sustainable Long-Term Solutions

Press Release

Over the weekend, Congressman Bill Huizenga (MI-02) sat down with Rick Albin on "To The Point" to discuss the latest budget battle in Washington and his thoughts on getting America's fiscal house in order. During the conversation, Rep. Huizenga addressed the unwillingness of the Senate to negotiate in good-faith and confront long-term problems with long-term solutions. Additionally, Congressman Huizenga stressed the need to deal with not only Washington's spending habits, but the expansion of government as well.

On The Need To Address The Long-Term Problems Facing America: Everybody wanted the shutdown to end. The question is: are we going to have unconditional debt increases without any sort of substantial, substantive, or significant changes? That is where I drew the line. … If you looked up "kicking the can down the road" in a thesaurus this would be "Exhibit A." … I am not convinced whatever the next step is will solve these long-term problems, because we're not using long-term solutions. You've got people who are not willing to look further down the road than the next three months or the next election cycle. We have to get serious about how we are going to deal with our spending and this mountain of debt being piled on our kids.

On The Fight To Rein In Washington's Out Of Control Spending: For two years in a row, for the first time since the end of the Korean War, we have seen government spending go down in real terms. … Harry Reid and his colleagues in the Senate want to see an expansion of government, an expansion of spending, not a contraction.

On Gridlock: It's not about partisanship. It is about the philosophical differences over the proper size, role, and scope of government. Whether it's TARP, whether it's the Affordable Care Act, whether it's our spending levels - it's all going to play into it.

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