Thursday, March 21, 2013

The Spending Problem from Congressman McClintock


The Spending Problem
House Chamber, Washington D.C.
March 20, 2013
 
Mr. Chairman:
 
Our fiscal problem can be summed up in just three numbers: 39, 37 and 64.  39 percent is the combined increase of inflation and population over the past ten years.  37 percent is the increase in revenues.  
 
The third number is killing us: 64 percent is the increase in spending – nearly twice the rate of inflation and population growth.
 
This has never been a revenue problem – it has always been a spending problem.
 
Yet, characteristic of other Democratic budgets, the Senate further accelerates spending while trying to chase it with a trillion dollars of new taxes. 
 
And despite a trillion dollars of new taxes they still can’t ever balance their budget.  There’s a reason.  It’s because this is a spending problem and dogmatically trying to address it on the revenue side will simply drive more and more spending until we become Greece.  Or Detroit.