Weekly Republican Address - Feb. 18, 2012

Hello, I’m Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and I have the honor of representing the hardworking taxpayers of eastern Washington. I’m also a mother of two young kids, Cole and Grace, and like millions of other moms across America, I’m concerned about our children’s future, and the economy they’ll inherit.

On February 23, 2009, during a fiscal responsibility summit at the White House, President Obama made a promise to the American people. “I’m pledging,” he said, “to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office.”

Well, in the budget he submitted this week to Congress, the president admitted he won’t keep his promise. He won’t even come close. Because of the president’s failure to control spending, the government will run trillion-dollar deficits in each of his four years in office.

President Obama’s broken promises have left our country broke. On his watch, the size of our debt has surpassed the size of our entire economy – making it harder for small businesses to create jobs and pushing us closer to a fiscal crisis.

I’m afraid his budget is even worse than it looks. More than half of the proposed “savings” in the president’s budget for the next year – about $2 trillion – are already law. These savings come from the Budget Control Act – the bill congressional Republicans insisted that the president sign last year in response to his demand for an increase in the nation’s debt limit. The president spent nearly six months last year resisting those spending reductions, until he finally listened to the people. Another almost $1 trillion in “savings” comes from what we call the “war gimmick” – money that was never requested and will never be spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those aren’t real savings. Do the math and you’ll discover that the president’s budget only achieves, at most, about a tenth of the savings it promises. This kind of accounting would sink any business or household.

It isn’t all that surprising, however, when you consider that a lot of what President Obama promised about the economy has turned out to be untrue.

Friday marked the three-year anniversary of the infamous “stimulus” spending bill. The president’s team said the unemployment rate would stay below eight percent if taxpayers gave his party a blank check to spend on government programs, but that promise didn’t pan out either. In fact, unemployment has been above eight percent for three years running. Gas prices have nearly doubled since the president took office. And the new health care law is making it harder for small businesses to hire new workers and provide insurance for their employees.

You see, the president and his party have it all wrong. They believe they can grow the economy and create jobs by increasing government spending and raising taxes, including taxes on small businesses. But the American people know that the way to grow the economy and create jobs is by cutting government spending and keeping taxes low for all taxpayers.

Unfortunately, the president’s budget continues on this wrong path. Instead of leading the effort to bring down our debt and make tough choices, the president is proposing that we spend more and more. All his wasteful spending puts us deeper in debt to China. All his tax hikes would destroy jobs and make it tougher to compete with China.

If we keep on going like this, the consequences will be devastating. As we’ve learned from Greece and the European Union, no country can escape the costs of big government policies forever. The president’s budget isn’t a blueprint for America – it’s a roadmap to Greece.

It didn’t have to be this way. The president and his party have been given numerous opportunities to rein in spending and help create a better environment for job creation, and they’ve punted almost every time. The president’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate haven’t produced a budget in nearly three years. That’s like writing checks all year long without ever balancing the checkbook. They wouldn’t even accept spending cuts to go along with the payroll tax holiday extension agreed to by Republicans and Democrats this week – spending cuts that came mostly from the president’s own proposals.

And now, after breaking his promise to cut the deficit in half, the president can’t even offer a credible budget. That just isn’t leadership.

The American people deserve better. My children and yours – who will inherit this debt – deserve much better. This spring, Republicans again will offer a pro-growth budget that lifts the crushing burden of debt and secures a future of opportunity and prosperity. This budget is part of Republicans’ Plan for America’s Job Creators, which removes government barriers to private-sector job creation – a stark contrast to the president’s failed “stimulus” approach. Learn more about the Republican jobs plan by visiting jobs.GOP.gov.

Thank you for listening, and God bless America.

Speech from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruPlSSyR2FI.