Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011
Floor Speech
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Mr. STUTZMAN. I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding.
Washington is broke, Mr. Speaker, and the American people know it, and they know how to get out of the mess that we're in.
I would like to reference back to August of 2009. The President visited my district in northern Indiana. He was visiting the city of Elkhart, Indiana. And during that press conference, he unleashed some very interesting statements. And a brave constituent of mine, Scott Ferguson, expressed his disappointment with taxes and asked the President to ``explain how raising the taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help with the economy.'' President Obama responded, ``Normally you don't raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven't and why, instead, cut taxes.'' So I guess what I would say to Scott is, his economics are right. And, Mr. President, I would agree with that.
Today we're hearing from the Democrats that we're paying for the Bush tax cuts. Well, I was elected last November but was here for 2 months when we voted to extend those Bush tax cuts which now I would refer to them as the Obama-Bush tax cuts. So I think it's important that we remember who we should be really pointing the finger at, that we should be pointing it at Washington. There's plenty of blame to go around.
I believe we are in a situation right now where we have a broken business. It is time for new leadership to come in and evaluate the situation. And what Republicans are proposing today is that we're going to give ourselves some breathing room with a debt ceiling increase. But more importantly, we are going to show the banker that we are not going to continue to borrow and spend, but we are going to change our spending habits and the way that we operate.
If we want to kick the can down the road and say we're not concerned about changing the way that we've operated, that's what the Democrat proposal is, just raise the debt ceiling without any reforms to our current budget process.
So I believe that this new leadership that we are seeing right here in this House is saying we've got to stop kicking the can down the road. Reform spending. Reform Washington.
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