Families across western Wisconsin know a budget is about priorities. Responsible budgeting also means adhering to some basic principles: don’t spend more than you take in and make smart investments that will help you down the road. With that in mind, I’m working to restore fiscal accountability and discipline in Congress.

Deficit Reduction Plan

I’m committed to making the tough decisions to actually cut wasteful and unnecessary spending. We can do that by reforming four categories of spending. Click here to read the full plan.

• Rising health care costs are the fastest area of spending in the federal budget. We must change the way we pay for health care to get these costs under control. Fortunately, recent health care reform puts us on a path to do this.
• Current weapons programs are $300 billion over budget - we must bring these costs under control.
• We must reform our outdated taxpayer funded farm subsidy programs. They are not responsible to taxpayers, do not help family farmers, have distorted the marketplace.
• Earmarks are irresponsible spending. We must eliminate earmarking from the budgeting process.

Default

We cannot let America default on our obligations because we are unwilling to work together to find a compromise on the budget. I know we can find common ground and make the tough decisions necessary to get us on a sound fiscal path. Hear me talk about the importance of putting partisanship aside and cutting wasteful spending in this Fox News interview.

In February of this year, I introduced two amendments to the GOP budget bill, that would have ended wasteful spending. You can see my floor speech on why I feel we should end taxpayer subsidies to Brazilian agribusiness, saving us $147 million each year.  In addition, see my floor speech below on my amendment that would have ended two wasteful military programs that the U.S. Department of Defense wants eliminated for a total of $13 billion in savings. Both amendments were rejected by a majority of House Republicans.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The lack of revenue, combined with big increases in spending, means the federal government will have to borrow 40 cents for every dollar it spends in 2011.  According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the annual federal budget deficit is projected to reach a record $1.5 trillion.

I’m pleased that the 111th Congress worked hard to follow basic budgeting principles, enacting the following. I hope that we continue to work toward reducing the deficit in similar ways in the 112th Congress.

• Statutory “Pay-As-You-Go” Budgeting (PAYGO) to restore the 1990s law that helped turn record deficits into surpluses by ensuring that Congress must offset new policies that reduce revenues or expand entitlements.
• Health Care Reform that will cut the deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next 20 years, slow the growth of health care costs, produce long-term savings, and crack down on waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare system.
• Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse by identifying, reducing, and eliminating improper payments by federal agencies by $50 billion between now and 2012.
• IMPROVE Acquisition Act to clean up defense acquisition spending for services and non-weapon systems, saving taxpayers an estimated $27 billion a year – after cracking down on Pentagon waste and cost overruns and no-bid contracts for weapon systems last year.

Having investigated some of Senator Bill Proxmire’s Golden Fleece awards pointing out wasteful government spending, I have long been committed to fiscal responsibility. I also oppose the automatic cost of living increase for Members of Congress and since taking office, have given back $1.15 million of my Congressional budget to reduce the deficit. I continue to lead the effort for earmark reform, forgoing requests and authoring legislation to reform the process.

It is imperative that we start making decisions that will guarantee our children inherit a better country. We must restore fiscal responsibility to get this economy growing again.