Budget Negotiations
Floor Speech
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Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. I appreciate the kind words. My background is in accounting, and I have been in business for 34 years. I have produced budgets for people on time. I have had people produce budgets for me on time. I look at the process--or the lack of a process here as absurd. Think about it. I have certainly produced budgets for smaller businesses--let's say a $10 million company. They would go through an awful lot of detail to draw up a budget. Talk about a little bit larger business, maybe a $1 billion-per-year business. There would be a lot of people involved, a lot of detail, and all that information filters up to the top. Then you come here to Washington and you see business as usual. I just want to make sure the American people understand how absurd this process is, the fact we haven't passed a budget in the Senate in over 2 years.
We now have the President--at least he has finally gotten engaged this last week. They are meeting behind closed doors. Is it really true they are going to produce a budget over the course of a couple of meetings--a budget for the Federal Government that would be $3.7 trillion, $3,700 billion worth--and they
are going to do this behind closed doors, just a couple of people? That is an absurd process.
The fact is, I am glad the President finally acknowledged Medicare is unsustainable. That is a sad fact. I wish it weren't so, but the first step, of course, in any process of being healed is to acknowledge that you have a problem. So I am glad the President finally acknowledged Medicare is unsustainable. But if he was really serious about structural reform, if he was really coming to the table in good faith, he would have come to the table 6 months ago. He would have been sitting down in good faith with Republican Senators, Republican Members of Congress, who understand how urgent the problem is, who want to work with this President, who want to work with anyone who is willing to seriously address the fact that we are bankrupting this Nation.
So, again, I find this process absurd. And I would ask the American people to please think about what is happening here. Rather than an orderly process, rather than a process being conducted in the light of day, we are doing it behind closed doors, and there will be something dropped, I am afraid, in our laps with no time to review it--another of these bills nobody has time to read. And that is what the financial fate of America rests on? I don't think so. It should not be that way.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Well, obviously it makes more sense to actually use them to make us more competitive so that global capital actually flows to the United States to create jobs here.
I am a long-term job producer. I certainly recognize it is the private sector that creates long-term self-sustaining jobs. I am afraid that is what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and President Obama simply don't understand.
I am often asked, Are you surprised by anything in Washington? I will tell you one thing I am not surprised about is that their solution is increasing taxes. Let's face it, we just undertook a $4 trillion experiment in Keynsian economics. We are down more than 2 million jobs since that grand experience began when President Obama became elected. It doesn't work. And now for the Democrats and President Obama proposing $1 trillion, $2 trillion or, as was pointed out, as much as $2.8 trillion in new taxes? What is that? That is actually taking money out of the private sector where real jobs are created. That would be the wrong direction. That would be a big mistake. That is why the Republicans are united in saying increasing taxes at any time, particularly in a weak economy, is the wrong prescription.
Getting our debt and deficit and spending under control, a balanced budget amendment is the solution. It can actually be enacted very quickly. We don't have to face the crisis that President Obama and the Treasury Secretary are trying to whip up here.
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