Click here to view Congresswoman Miller’s speech on YouTube
WASHINGTON – U.S. Congresswoman Candice Miller (MI-10) today made the following comments on the Floor of the House of Representatives:
“In advance of the election last fall, the House Republican Conference presented a governing document called the Pledge to America which put forward our ideas on how we intended to deal with the unsustainable level of deficit spending that has created a crippling debt being forced upon our children, our grandchildren and future generations.
“The American people agreed with us and entrusted the Republican Party with a new majority here in the House in order to carry out what we had put forward. In that pledge we promised that we would cut $100 billion from the fiscal year 2011 budget and with the passage of this legislation, the underlining legislation which I support, we will keep that promise. Unfortunately, President Obama did not seem to get that message as he has threatened to veto this legislation. The President remains committed to an agenda that calls for ever higher spending, higher taxes, trillion dollar deficits, huge debt and a government that is out-of-control.
“The President presented his budget to the Congress this past Monday. The President patted himself on the back by saying that his budget reduces the deficit over the next 10 years by about a trillion dollars, but he said little about that fact that according to his own math more than $7 trillion would be added to our national debt. Today, our national debt is in excess of $14 trillion. At the end of the President’s 10 year budget window it will be nearly $23 trillion.
“It is clear that the President’s budget was not a governing document like the Pledge to America was – it was a political document in which he refused to take on the tough challenges we face in our nation. In the Illinois State Senate, President Obama, then-State Senator Obama, voted present 130 times refusing to take a position on various issues facing his state. And in his irresponsible budget on Monday, President Obama once again voted present.
“President Obama needs to know that with the many challenges facing our nation – that now is not the time to vote present. Now is the time to provide leadership. You don’t have to believe me that the President’s budget does not provide the serious leadership that our nation needs now – just read the Washington Post, one of the President’s strongest supporters in the media, which said this about the Obama budget: ‘The President punted. Having been given the chance , the cover and the push by the fiscal commission he created to take bold steps to raise revenue and curb entitlement spending, President Obama, in his fiscal 2012 budget proposal, chose instead to duck. To duck, and to mask some of the ducking with the sort of budgetary gimmicks he once derided.’
“Punting in football is the equivalent of voting present in politics. By once again voting present – the President refused the mantle of leadership at a time of fiscal crisis in our nation. We in the Republican Party will take that mantle and continue to put forward an agenda for America that gets our fiscal house in order and empowers the private sector to create new jobs. We listened to the American people and they can see today our seriousness in dealing with out-of-control spending problem we have. In our budget we will show once again that we are serious about reducing these unsustainable deficits. We understand that out-of-control government spending, borrowing and debt -- limits the opportunities available to our children and grandchildren to help them achieve the American Dream.
“We will continue to tackle the tough issues head on. And if President Obama believes that his political supporters simply will attack all of our efforts to return this nation to fiscal sanity, if he believes that by voting present, by taking a pass on the tough decisions that somehow he’s gain political advantage – I believe the that President has seriously underestimated the political will of the American people and seriously misread the message from the last election.
“The American people understand that the status quo is not sustainable. They understand that we cannot build our economy on top of a mountain of debt. And the American people understand that it is simply unacceptable for the leader of our nation at this time in our history to be voting present. And this week, the members of the House are making the difficult choices on this Continuing Resolution which we have been debating this week. The Republican majority will be presenting our budget in the near future and we will not be voting present.”
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