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Speaker
John Boehner
Washington Has a Spending Problem
that Can’t Be Fixed with Tax
Hikes
Dec
13, 2012
Washington-At
his weekly press conference today, House Speaker
John Boehner (R-OH) underscored the need for serious spending cuts to
avert the
fiscal cliff, begin addressing our staggering debt, and support
economic
growth. Speaker
Boehner highlighted a
new chart by the House Budget Committee showing that America has a
spending problem
– not a revenue problem – that can only be addressed by cutting
spending, not
raising tax rates on small businesses.
Following are Speaker Boehner’s remarks:
On
the President’s Failure to Offer a Balanced Approach to Avert
the Fiscal Cliff:
“You
know, more than five weeks ago, Republicans signaled our
willingness to avert the fiscal cliff with a bipartisan agreement that
is truly
balanced and begins to solve our spending problem.
The president still has not made an offer
that meets those two standards. But
Republicans have.
“While
the president promised the American people a balanced
approach, his proposals have been anything but.
He wants far more in tax hikes than in
spending cuts. And
instead of beginning to solve our debt
problem, he wants new ‘stimulus’ spending and the ability to raise the
debt
limit whenever he wants, without any cuts or reforms.”
On
the Need for Serious Spending Cuts to Resolve the Fiscal Cliff,
Begin Addressing Our Debt & Pave the Way for Economic Growth:
“Now
it’s clear the president’s just not serious about cutting
spending. But
spending is the problem.
“How
big a problem? Look at this chart put together by Paul Ryan
and the Budget Committee. This
line is
the current baseline for revenue.
Here,
if the president got everything he wanted – over $1.4 trillion in taxes
– this
is what that would represent. But
if you
look at the spending problem, you see it does nothing – nothing to
solve the
spending problem that our country has.
“Listen,
Republicans want to solve this problem by getting this
spending line down. The president wants to pretend that spending isn’t
the
problem. That’s why
we don’t have an
agreement.
“The
chart depicts what I’ve been saying for a long time now:
Washington has a spending problem that can’t be fixed with tax
increases alone. The
right answer is to start cutting
spending, addressing our debt, and paving the way for long-term
economic
growth.”
On
the White House Slow-Walking a Solution to the Fiscal Cliff:
“Unfortunately,
the White House is so unserious about cutting
spending that it appears willing to slow-walk any agreement and walk
our
economy right up to the fiscal cliff.
Doing that puts jobs in our country in danger,
it jeopardizes a golden
opportunity to make 2013 the year that we enact fundamental tax reform
and
entitlement reform to begin to solve our country’s debt problem and,
frankly,
revenue problem.
“As
you can see from this chart, real revenue growth is critically
important as long as real cuts in spending if we’re going to resolve
our
long-term fiscal problem.”
On
the Need for the President to Work with Republicans on a
Balanced Approach to Avert the Fiscal Cliff with Serious Spending Cuts:
“As
I said five weeks ago, the election wasn’t a mandate to raise
tax rates on small businesses. It
was a
mandate for both parties to work together to take on the big challenges
that
our country is facing. Republicans
are
ready and eager to do just that. We
made
a reasonable offer, it’s now up to the White House to show us how
they’re going
to cut spending and give us the balanced agreement that the president
has
talked about for weeks.
“If
the president will step up and show us he’s willing to make the
spending cuts that are needed I think we can do some real good in the
days
ahead. If not – he
wants to keep chasing
higher spending with higher taxes – this chart’s going to look a whole
lot
worse. And our kids
and our grandkids
are the ones who are going to suffer because Washington was too
short-sighted
to fix the problem.”
Read
the article and see the video at Speaker John Boehner
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