Cut, Cap, and Balance Act is a Plan that Can Work

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, today the House is going to debate a bill that holds the potential to move us away from a debt crisis and toward prosperity. I want to associate myself with the comments that were made by our colleague the gentlelady from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler) a couple of speakers ago when she talked about how our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that it is irresponsible to amend the Constitution in order to require the Congress to balance the budget.

Yesterday in the Rules Committee, we heard from the gentleman from Maryland who talked about how we're twisting the Constitution to put in a limit on how we could cut taxes, raise taxes, into the Constitution, that how, by putting a two-thirds vote and restrictions into the Constitution, we're damaging the Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. Congresses in the past have proven that they don't have the restraint that's necessary to keep our spending under control. We need a constitutional amendment in order to do that.

They did admit yesterday that we are paying the credit card from the past, and I want to point out that under President Obama, the average annual deficits that were in existence under President Bush became monthly deficits under President Obama. Since 2 1/2 years ago, the national debt has increased by $3.7 trillion.

That's why we need to cut spending, Mr. Speaker. We need to cut our spending. We need to cap our spending at no more than 20 percent of the GDP. That's what it was traditionally. It has now eased up to 23 percent. We have to take it back down.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to point out, as my colleague from Missouri said, that when President Obama was Senator Obama, he spoke on the Senate floor and voted against raising the debt limit, saying that it was a failure of leadership. He doesn't admit that now, that it's a failure of leadership. He doesn't even admit that he's part of the problem. And part of the problem is that he has no plan. When we asked yesterday in Rules, ``Where's the President's plan?'' we were told it was in his speech at George Washington University. Well, even his own staff people, even his own appointees, say they can't score a speech.

Republicans have a plan, and our plan is to cut, cap, and balance. We need a constitutional amendment, Mr. Speaker, in order to force the Congress to do its job. Past Congresses, as it has been shown, couldn't do it. We're willing to do that. There is no leadership on the part of the Democrats. The budget that the President presented in February was voted down, 97-0, in the Senate. Even his own party will not support him.

And what about all these corporate loopholes that the President and our colleagues keep talking about? The President talks about these corporate jets, but he doesn't admit the fact that the loopholes he's talking about, which he calls subsidies, that loophole was in the stimulus that he forced through this Congress, that no Republican voted for. So the corporate loophole for the jets is one the President put into place, and now he's condemning it.

Mr. Speaker, we need our President and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to fess up to the fact that they've created this problem, they have no plan to solve it, and all they want to do is throw barbs at the Republicans who are showing the courage to do something about this serious debt crisis that we face in this country.

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