Putting our Nation's Fiscal House in Order

Floor Speech

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Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the gentlelady from Tennessee for organizing this group to talk about this essential issue that is coming before the people of this country as described to be a fiscal cliff. Quite frankly, we need to look back at Alice in Wonderland to see from whence we have come.

In the case of Alice in Wonderland, there's a line that says if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. Certainly in the case of Congress, the Republicans have laid out a road. It's a road map for America's future. It was designed by our House Budget Committee chaired by Congressman Paul Ryan from Wisconsin, and it lays out a plan for spending. It lays out a plan to sustain the viability and vitality of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid into the future, to make sure that seniors now can enjoy the benefits that they've earned through Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And the young people who are paying for it now will have those benefits available to them when they retire or when they need them.

That is our road map to America's future. That is our budget. It passed this House unanimously through Members of Congress who are of the Republican persuasion.

By contrast, the Democrats have not tendered or put forward a budget for over 1,300 days. Now, Tim Tebow was a quarterback at the University of Florida 1,300 days ago before his career at the Denver Broncos, before his career now in New York. So many things have happened in those 1,300 days in America. How could one important political party in this country not put forward a budget, a road map, to where we want to go with our spending and to retire our debt?

Something that our budget, the Paul Ryan/Republican budget, put forward is a pathway to eliminate our debt and our deficit without raising taxes and while preserving America's social safety net. And yet the other side of the aisle put forth nothing in response. And the answer is because, I believe, they don't know where we're going so any road will get them there.

The President's budget was presented by Timothy Geithner to the House Budget Committee. We asked him: When does it balance? At what point out in the future does it eliminate our debt and our deficit? And the answer was, Never. Never.

Our country needs direction right now; and the people who are here tonight want to make sure that the people of America know where we're going and yet our President put forward a budget that never balances. And his answer now on this road to however and wherever we're going is, I want to tax people who can provide enough income for our Nation to fund it for 8 days. That's not a budget. That's not an answer. That's not an American value. That is not where we should be going.

Our own Government Accountability Office has put together three volumes of reports that contain in them ways that we can consolidate spending, create efficiencies in government, save money, and make our government smaller, more robust, serve the people, and yet save $900 billion a year. Now, that is three-fourths of the way to solving our entire deficit, and yet why aren't we grabbing that and running with it? Why are we talking about raising taxes on the American people, on our small businesses?

I come from a State where there are no big cities, Madam Chairman. I come from a State where the largest town has less than 60,000 people. I come from a State where there are no Big Four, too-big-to-fail banks. A place where you go to your local Main Street banker if you want to borrow money and present a plan to pay it back, a secured loan that comes to you and that you do pay back, from people who know you, that know your reputation and your ability to repay. And yet laws like Dodd-Frank and this mysterious creation called Basel III will put global banks and my little banks on Main Streets in Wyoming on the same capital plan. That was never intended. That's so irrational.

Let's work together, Republicans and Democrats, to help our country rationalize and put things back on the right track and focus on our spending problems.

Use the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports to eliminate even half of the items that we're overspending. It would be a stunning victory for the American people, and we know how to get there.

Mr. Speaker and Madam Chairman, you are leaders in this caucus, this conference, this country. We, in this House, know how to solve these problems. What we lack is gumption. What we lack is the relationship with the President of the United States to sit down and talk to him about these issues.

One more thing, Madam Chairman. I realize we have very important remarks to be made from others here tonight, but I want to tell you a story. There is a group here in the House that gets together once a week. And one day we had Bob Schieffer come in and speak to us, Bob Schieffer of CBS News, a long time, highly respected journalist.

And I had the chance to ask him, When you look at the crises in negotiations that are occurring now, between Members of Congress and the President, why are we having so much trouble communicating? Who have you witnessed in your lengthy, illustrious career that did it better? Who would you hold up as an example?

Well, Bob Schieffer first started covering Lyndon Baines Johnson in Texas many years ago, and he told a story about how LBJ would have handled this. He mentioned that LBJ would religiously watch the Sunday morning talk shows. He would watch ``Meet the Press,'' and he would watch the shows that were on the networks because that's all we had back then was networks.

He would watch the Speaker of the House on those programs. And if the Speaker would give an avenue for compromise, he had him on the telephone before the Speaker of the House left the studio. And he'd say, Mr. Speaker, why don't you come over to the White House tonight?

Lady Bird and I'll put on some fried chicken and we'll just sit around in the kitchen and talk this over. I see an avenue for us to agree on 10 percent or 20 percent of where we need to go to solve this Nation's problems.

He would connect, on a personal level, and on a level that found that crack in the armor of failure to communicate. And that's how he solved the problems.

What we find now is that if the Speaker goes on television and leaves a crack in the armor, say an offer to come up with $700 billion or $800 billion in new revenue, something that this President campaigned on, instead of having the President call the Speaker and say, Mr. Speaker, I think we're getting somewhere. Why don't you come over. We'll get together around the kitchen table and just talk about this. I think we're getting somewhere. Instead, the Speaker is blasted by the press shop at the White House within hours of his making a presentation on the Sunday morning talk shows. And people wonder why we can't solve these problems?

There is a way to solve these problems. We know what to do to solve these problems.

I compliment the gentlelady from Tennessee for her hard work to solve these problems, to illustrate for the American people that there's room for compromise in Washington. And I salute your efforts to reach out to everyone, to the American people, and across the aisle to make that happen.

Madam Chairman, I yield back with my compliments.

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