The Budget Process
As a Member of the House Budget Committee, I am committed to crafting a budget that will foster and sustain economic growth, get Washington's financial house back in order, and will improve incentives for Americans to work, innovate and invest through pro-growth tax reforms.
Click here to watch an outline of "The Path to Prosperity" FY 2012 Budget Proposal.
America’s debt is the “single biggest threat to our national security” according to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. With more than $14.3 trillion already borrowed from our children, America and its future is at risk. In 2011, we will borrow 42 cents of every dollar that the Federal government spends. Put another way, we bring in enough tax dollars to fund Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest on the debt, and similar programs. Everything else we borrow. Every nickel for transportation, the environment, Congress, the President, the courts, homeland security, education, national defense, parks, and more is borrowed and converted into debt. Who is the largest purchaser of American debt? Not Germany, not Japan, and not China. It is the Federal Reserve. That’s right. We can’t find enough buyers for all of our debt, so we print money ourselves and use it to buy American debt. “Frightening” is an understatement.
We must get America’s fiscal house in order or there will be no America. The problem is enormous, so it may take years to solve, but we must start today. As a Freshman in this new Congress, I was proud to vote to freeze 2011 spending at 2010 levels, and the President signed it into law. I was proud to vote to cut that 2010 level even further, and the President signed it into law. Finally, I was proud to vote for and pass a budget that cuts spending levels back even further, to 2008 levels. While the President has not signed this into law, I am continuing to press him and the Senate on it.
These are small steps in magnitude but huge steps here in Congress. Not since World War II has Congress succeeded in freezing spending and cutting below previous year’s levels, but this Congress has. I commit to you that as your Representative in Congress I will continue to take these steps—large and small—until we restore fiscal responsibility to America once again.
