Issue Position: Fiscal Responsibility

Issue Position

Congress has the duty and obligation to be good fiscal stewards of the public treasury. Wasteful spending needlessly adds to our deficit and takes money away from vital services. Indeed, as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Interior Department under President Clinton, I shrunk the department while improving its management of public lands.

I've voted for more than three trillion dollars in spending reductions since entering Congress while supporting needed investments in job creation, health access, research, infrastructure, and services to help seniors, children, and working families.

From my earliest days in Congress, I called for a responsible drawdown from Iraq and Afghanistan, and continue to think we can both save money in defense and keep America and our allies safer by targeting Al Qaeda like a laser and investing in foreign intelligence instead of engaging in protracted ground wars.

I have voted to save money in health coverage by cracking down on Medicare fraud, modernizing electronic health records, removing duplicative paperwork, and encouraging preventative and wellness care to stop expensive ailments before they happen. I have also called for ending tax loopholes that encourage businesses to ship jobs overseas and for ending wasteful Big Oil subsidies. I have also called for ending the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, restoring the wealthiest 1%'s tax rate to where it was during the surplus years of the Clinton administration.

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