OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2009

Floor Speech

Date: March 13, 2008
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Senior Citizens Entitlements and the Safety Net Government Budget and Spending

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009 -- (House of Representatives - March 13, 2008)

BREAK IN THE TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PENCE. I thank the ranking member for yielding, and I thank him for his extraordinary leadership on this budget. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of fiscal responsibility, and my conscience therefore demands that I rise in support of the Republican budget.

Now, the American people deserve to know the truth. We have a $9.3 trillion national debt, but that is not the whole story. The American people also deserve to know that we have some $53 trillion in unfunded liability in Social Security and Medicare over the next 75 years. Frankly, if this government were a business back in Indiana, it would have to file bankruptcy.

Republicans are offering an alternative budget to deal with this fiscal crisis at the national level based on spending restraint and entitlement reform. It balances the budget without taxes and without earmarks.

But the answer from the Democrat majority? Get this: The largest budget in American history, $3.1 trillion. The largest 1-year increase in the public debt in American history, some $646 billion. Higher taxes and nothing to reform earmarks or the very entitlement spending that threatens the economic vitality of our children and our grandchildren's future.

In 2006, the American people voted for change in Washington, D.C., but they weren't referring to what would be left in their pockets after the Democrats took control. We must balance the Federal budget with fiscal discipline and reform, not with more spending and more taxes. We must reject the policies of the new liberal Democratic majority in Congress and reject their budget.

I urge my colleagues to vote for fiscal discipline and reform, to end earmarking as usual, and to stand for fundamental entitlement reform in Washington, D.C. Vote for the budget priorities of the Republican minority in Congress. They are, I believe with all my heart, the budget priorities of the overwhelming majority of the American people.


Source
arrow_upward