Financial Services And General Government Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Chairman, again, today I rise in defense of the American taxpayer.

Mr. Chairman, we were greeted this week with the unfortunate news that we have already spent $1 trillion more than we have taken in in this fiscal year. The projections for next year are no better. Many think they're even worse. And yet, here we find ourselves on the floor again, one more day, one more ``approps'' bill, one more debate about spend, spend, spend.

Everybody in this Chamber knows that I am the grandmother of two precious little boys. Their future is so special and precious to me. And because of that, every day when I come to work, I think about the ramifications of the votes that I take and what it is going to do to them. And every day, I come down here, and what I try to do is slow the growth of government spending. It is completely out of control. It is about to bankrupt this Nation, and it is costing us jobs, jobs, jobs. And I do that because my grandsons already, at the age of 14 months and 1 month, they already owe $70,000 to Uncle Sam. The debt that we run up here will be paid in their denied opportunities of tomorrow. I just can't run up that debt with a clear conscience, and I really don't think that, if my colleagues stopped to think about it, that they would want to be running up that type of debt either.

That is especially true when we consider the funding for the programs that are before us today, because that funding has risen over 52 percent in the past 3 years. These same programs have already received $7 billion this year in stimulus funding. And yet, we propose another 6.4 percent increase, another $1.5 billion increase more than last year. That will include a new $5 million for a program called Youth Services. When I saw that, I thought, my goodness. I wonder how our youth will end up servicing the massive debt that we are leaving them to handle.

My 5 percent across-the-board cut will save the taxpayers $1.2 billion. My friends on the other side of the aisle will, no doubt, rise in opposition to this bill, and they're going to tell their constituents how hard they've worked in committee, how responsible the bill is. And as one of my constituents said, it must be mighty hard work to spend a billion dollars an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which is exactly what is happening in Congress.

I just don't buy the lines about hard work anymore, and neither does the American taxpayer. How hard can we be working? How many hard choices can possibly be being made by Members of this Chamber when every year we spend more and more and more.

My colleagues may say that they aren't increasing funding by all that much, if you don't count the stimulus money, and you don't count the special appropriations. But we have already spent that money on programs. And I do count that money, and I count it because the ones who are going to have to pay that back are our children and our grandchildren.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman across the aisle from me may offer a series of programs that his party claims are just too vital to be cut. And I would challenge him to take that list to his constituents, to lots of grandmoms like me, and just ask them if they agree.

I would concede that yes, indeed we do have critical programs that need to be funded. I would simply suggest that, in this economy, when people are losing their jobs, when businesses are struggling, with a $1 trillion deficit already on the books for this year, that we consider reducing by 5 percent the amount of increase that is before us today.

And so now, so that my colleagues can dazzle me with their Washington-style math, I will reserve the balance of my time.

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