Where's The Budget?

Floor Speech

Mr. SCALISE. I thank my colleague and the gentleman from Georgia, and I appreciate you bringing this issue to the forefront because what we're talking about here is responsibility.

And Speaker Pelosi, when she took the gavel 3 1/2 years ago--she's been Speaker for 3 1/2 years--and they talked about doing things differently. They laid out all kinds of promises. They bashed Republicans for being fiscally irresponsible. And yet all we've seen from Speaker Pelosi and her liberal lieutenants who are running this Congress is spending at unprecedented levels. This year a trillion and a half dollars. They're breaking records every day on deficit spending that is being dumped onto the backs of our children and our grandchildren, denying opportunity to the next generation.

And yet when you look at what families are doing across this country--these are tough economic times. People are looking to Washington saying, Where are the jobs? Why isn't Washington focused on creating jobs?

And we've come up with ideas and solutions that we've put on the table to create jobs, to cut taxes, things that have been proven to work to get the economy back on track, and every time we've been turned away. And yet when families are tightening their belts, they're pulling back. They're cutting their budgets.

Our States: in Louisiana, in my State, we've got a Governor right now, our Governor's cutting the budget to balance it. They're going to balance the budget this year even though it's tough economic times, like most States are doing. And like most families are doing. And Washington seems to be the only place where they not only don't get it, but at a time when everybody else is cutting back and tightening their belts to live within their means, Washington's spending out of control in record levels.

And now, as you pointed out, they haven't even brought a budget to this House floor for next year. No budget. Haven't even brought a budget. Now, we think they should bring a balanced budget. In fact, we've proposed a balanced budget. They haven't even brought a budget, any budget.

Maybe you'd say, well, maybe it's because Congress is so busy dealing with so many important issues and creating jobs and all of these other things. Unfortunately, that's not the case. They brought the government takeover of health care. They had time for that. Something that's going to run millions of jobs out of this country, billions of dollars in new taxes. They brought this cap-and-trade energy tax, a tax that would add thousands of dollars to every family's electricity bill.

Just look at today's agenda. My colleague from Georgia, as he points out, they haven't brought the budget. You say, well, maybe that's because there's a lot of things on the agenda other than a budget that is so important. Let's look at some of the votes we took on the House floor today. We named a post office. We congratulated a basketball team. In fact, we even honored a courthouse. Honored a courthouse. That's what was on the agenda of the United States House of Representatives today.

And yet they haven't even brought a budget to this floor--not only a balanced budget like we think they should bring, but the President's budget--the only document that's sitting out there. The President's budget doubles the national debt in 5 years. Doubles it.

Now, we want to say rein in that spending. Rein it in. Stop this out-of-control spending.

They started last year with the stimulus bill, $787 billion of money that we don't have. But they said, Oh, it needs to happen so we don't exceed 8 percent unemployment. Well, today we're sitting at 9.9 percent unemployment. It just keeps going up. Millions more Americans have lost their jobs in the year and a half that President Obama has been President, Speaker Pelosi has been running the House, HARRY REID's running the Senate. They control all of government. And all you see is out-of-control spending, more lost jobs, and hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes. And you wonder why businesses in this country are afraid to hire or afraid to invest, why families are scared to death looking not only at their own pocketbooks, but more concerned with what Washington's doing to deny them, and especially our children and grandchildren, more opportunities.

So I think we need to keep this focus up. We need to address this problem. We need to balance our budget.

I yield back.

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