Enzi Responds to Constituent Questions on Budget Deal, NSA Surveillance

Statement

The Ryan/Murray budget deal and NSA spying on Americans were the subjects of a new video U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., recorded this week. The video addresses a few questions and comments Wyoming constituents sent him during the past couple weeks through Facebook and Twitter, from phone calls to his D.C. and Wyoming offices, and from email and written letters.

Budget Deal

"This budget deal is like so many others that put off hard decisions for the future. It steals money from the future and spends it in the present. It takes it from accounts that are supposed to be trust funds and does it through increased taxes without letting people know."

"They put it forward as a take it or leave it deal. Harry Reid set it up so there can be no amendments to it. We have tried a couple of tactics to put some amendments in there, but those have failed along party lines. It's either a take it or leave it and I won't "take' a take it or leave it that doesn't provide for future by making cuts in the present."

NSA Surveillance

"I don't believe that the government ought to be able to capture records, particularly without any kind of a legitimate warrant. That's how it was originally set up. You had to appear before a judge and give a reason for a particular phone number."

"This got completely out of hand. NSA disregarded the law. NSA started capturing everybody's phone number…That shouldn't happen in America, we've got to stop that."

"We also have to worry about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is capturing your financial records at the present time. I complained about that and tried to get a privacy protection piece in there."

"I tried to get this bureau shut down. This bureau is funded before the money every comes to the federal government, so we have no control over their budget, no control over their employees, no control over what they do. That shouldn't happen in America."

Source