Rep. Jordan on Obama's Budget

Statement:

WASHINGTON – In preparation for his lead role in supporting a more fiscally-conservative “alternative” budget, Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Urbana) today offered the following opening remarks in the House Budget Committee in opposition to President Barack Obama’s FY 2010 budget proposal.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last Friday, Emily and Andrew Beck, originally from Carey, OH in our district gave birth to their son Olin. Olin is nine pounds, 3 ounces, 19 ¼ inches long and named after his grandpa. And little does this young man know - baby Olin is already more than $30,000 in debt to his government. And if the majority’s budget plays out as projected, that debt will go up to $70,000 by the time he’s able to write his name in cursive.

Olin’s not a free spender...he’s barely a week old! He simply was born at a time of unprecedented deficit spending by his United States Congress. This budget spends 10 billion dollars a day, every day for a year, moving the budget to an unprecedented level of 25% of GDP. It projects trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, landing somewhere around 125% of GDP in a few years.

And this comes on top of the bailouts, the omnibus spending bill, and the so-called stimulus bill that promises to spend $262,000 per job created, showering our tax dollars on such things as 300 million dollars worth of golf carts for federal bureaucrats; 50 million dollars for the National Endowment for the Arts; and millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bonuses for executives at AIG.

Mr. Chairman, the administration has suggested that America’s economic ‘crisis’ should not be overlooked as an ‘opportunity’ for the majority to spend.

We disagree. We believe this is a moral issue – about baby Olin’s future, and about the future of our country. For generations, moms and dads have sacrificed so their kids can have life a little better than they did. That is the American dream!

But with this budget, the majority and the administration are putting the future at risk. They are forcing baby Olin and his generation into an almost insurmountable debt spiral – requiring them to run a 1 trillion-dollar budget surplus every year for 23 straight years, just to break even.

That is, of course, unless another ‘crisis’ allows the majority another ‘opportunity’ to spend even more.

When will this madness stop? When will the American people say ‘enough is enough’? For the sake of every American taxpayer – both current and future – to whom Congress will send the bill for this incredible spending, I implore my colleagues to show some restraint – and a little common sense – and start over on this budget.”