Where's the Budget
Floor Speech
Where's the Budget?
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Thank you, and I want to thank the gentleman for yielding.
And my wonderful district that goes from Memphis to Nashville and all the way to the Kentucky border, of course, right now we're fighting floods, and so many of our residents have been, are suffering the adverse effects of all of those floods. And we remember them every day and want to let them know that we're thinking about them.
I'm glad that we're talking about the budget issue because budgets are to lay out the priorities of the Federal Government, and they're to define for our taxpayers and our constituents where this money is going to be spent. And as the gentleman just said, it is our responsibility. This is supposed to be done. Congress is charged with having control of the purse of the Federal Government, and we are to do this, as the gentleman said, by April 15 every year.
Now, what some of my constituents are asking me, as we talk about fiscal responsibility, is: Why aren't they doing a budget this year? What are they afraid of? And what is the reason that they would choose not to do a budget?
Because budgets are to outline those priorities, and they're to be a roadmap. And you know what is so interesting is so many of our constituents like following the budget process. When we send that link to the President's budget, when we send that link through our Blackburn Report to the budget document that the House has under consideration, they follow it, and they like to see where their taxpayer dollars are being spent.
I had one constituent who said, you know, I think this is so disrespectful of
the American taxpayer that they would, in their arrogance, say, Trust us. We don't have to do a budget document. Just trust us. We're going to keep spending. We're not going to curtail our spending. Just trust us.
And the American people are listening to that, and they're saying, You've got to be kidding.
As Mr. Jordan said, you know, families do this, small businesses, everybody's been tightening their belts. Our colleges, our universities, our counties and our cities, they're all doing their budget hearings right now, and they're perplexed that Congress would consider moving forward.
Now, the gentleman from Georgia talked a little bit about past spending. And I think as we talk about deficits and the debt, that the gentleman from Georgia and I probably agree that--and I know I certainly talked with President Bush and I think he did, too, many times. I felt that President Bush spent too much.
CBO says when you look at the years of Republican control from 1994 to 2006, our average annual deficit was about $104 billion per year. And then you go in, and the gentleman has the chart that shows what happened when there was Democrat control of Congress, the 3 years that they have had it, 2007, 2008, 2009.
Well, our $104 billion a year deficit, which was way too much--we should never have a deficit, or it should only be in extenuating circumstances. We all support a balanced budget. We support a balanced budget amendment. We support bringing that in, like the RSC did last year, having a balanced budget.
But when you look at the fact that $104 billion, as opposed to $1.11 trillion, which has been their average annual deficit, it causes people to say, My goodness. You mean our average annual deficit has become their monthly deficit?
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Our average, under Republican control, the average annual deficit has become what now, under Democrat control, they are running in deficit averaging on a month. And I think that's what causes concern to people.
April, the deficit was four times what it was last year. These are numbers that cause people to say, Wait a minute. We have to put the brakes on. We are on the wrong track, and it is time for Washington to get its fiscal house in order.
You know, one of the things that I will ask when someone says, Well, we need to be spending more on this and we need to be spending more on that; people need to be paying more in taxes so that the Federal Government can spend more, is, Well, how much is enough when it comes to taxes? How much is ever going to be enough? How much spending is ever going to be enough?
And those are questions that, when you stop and think about it, is there ever going to be a time when those that want to spend taxpayer money get enough?
I think we would all agree, Washington does not have a revenue problem. Washington has a spending problem. And the way we begin to get the spending under control is to have a budget that is going to spend less. That is going to be the first step.
Now, the gentleman from Georgia had the charts, and he was talking about an estimated, I think it's $2.3 trillion in revenues and the $3.8 trillion in outlays, and that was the budget that the President had proposed.
And I ask the gentleman, do I have my figures correct? $2.3 trillion and change for the revenues and $3.8 trillion and change for the expenditures?
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
We know that since the time that that budget was presented to us we have passed a health care bill. And we know that last week even CBO came back and said guess what, we misfigured. We are going to change these projections. So already those expenditure and outlay projections are off because we have the trillion dollar-plus health care bill that we are going to be looking at.
That is something that certainly is on the minds of the taxpayers. They want to see the out of control spending stop. And I think that they are sending a message loud and clear. The focus should be on the economy. It should be on jobs. Constituents every day are saying, Where are the jobs? You have stimulated big government, but you haven't stimulated Main Street. Where are the jobs? And they are focused on the out of control spending from Washington on programs they do not want. And they know that not only they the taxpayer, we the people cannot afford, but the Federal Government cannot afford to be spending our money on those programs.
I yield back.
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