Congressman Doug Lamborn (CO-05) today gave the keynote address at the annual Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce luncheon. He reiterated his commitment to the free markets, small government, and a strong national defense.

Below are highlights from the speech:
 

Restoring American Prosperity:

The drive, creativity, and ingenuity of the American people – in other words the private sector at its best – is what makes America great…not government intervention and regulation.

 If we can return to the basics by cutting spending and rolling back burdensome government regulations, we can unleash the private sector, get this economy growing again, and put Americans back to work.

And let’s be clear – government does not create jobs. Businesses in the private sector create jobs.

National Defense

Over the next decade our defense could be cut by more than 1 trillion dollars. This would bring defense spending to its lowest levels, when measured by GDP, in our modern history.

The size of our defense budget should be driven by our strategy not the other way around.  The president’s recently announced Defense Strategy was an afterthought. He had already ordered the defense cuts and only after pressure from senior military advisors did he put out a strategy that was clearly based on budget cuts, not by the threats we will face as a nation. 

I am committed to doing everything humanly possible to ensure we have a military so strong that no one would even think of challenging it.

House Accomplishments

This past year, the House passed more than 30 bipartisan bills aimed at protecting job creators from tax increases, rolling back job-killing regulations, promoting American energy independence, and generally creating a better environment for job creators.  Unfortunately, these are all sitting in the Senate, where Harry Reid has a deliberate policy not to hear House legislation.

We voted to cut about $6 trillion in government spending over the next decade – forcing government to live within its means and allowing hardworking American families to prosper.

During the first month of our new majority, House Republicans, including me, voted to repeal President Obama’s job-destroying healthcare bill.

The House passed the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill last summer to cut spending immediately, to enforce spending caps, and to require Congress to send a Balanced Budget Amendment to the states for ratification.

2012 Legislative Priorities

Budget Before Borrowing Act

Some of you may be shocked to learn that the Senate has not passed a budget in over 1000 days. It is hard for us to work together to address the nation’s problems when even the basic things like budgeting get ignored.  It is bad enough to borrow like there is no tomorrow. But to do so without even a budget in place is simply wrong.  My bill would stop this madness.

Keystone Pipeline project

This massive energy project would create 20,000 direct, real jobs for Americans, and 100,000 indirect jobs.  It would spur more than $20 billion in new spending for our struggling economy. 

Protecting National Defense

I have co-sponsored a bill with the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Buck McKeon, to protect our military from the half-a-trillion in across-the-board defense cuts that are scheduled to take effect a year from now.  Instead of gutting defense, our bill trims the federal bureaucracy in Washington. 

To view the text of the speech, as prepared for delivery, click here.

# # #