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Additional Continuing Appropriations Amendments, 2011

Floor Speech

Date: March 15, 2011
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Government Budget and Spending

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Mr. WOMACK. I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for his leadership on the Appropriations Committee and for yielding me some time here this morning.

Mr. Speaker, yes, it's true. I came here on January 5. Just a few weeks ago, I put my hand up and took the oath of office. As I did, I was reminded of the fact that, at that precise time in my life, I was taking the oath of office already 3 months into the fiscal year. Now, you show me what business or what governmental jurisdiction anywhere in America is effectively and efficiently managed when you're operating without a budget already 3 months into the budget year.

I was a mayor of a very dynamic city in northwest Arkansas. We never did that. We couldn't survive by passing our budget sometime during the course of the ongoing year. So our conference, in particular, is leading by example. We are providing a leadership example for the spending cuts that so many people around America have said over and over again we have to achieve.

Look, America gets it. We are at a $1.5 trillion deficit in this FY, and we are $14-plus trillion in debt. We have to do something about spending. It's all about the end game, which is where this side of the aisle and that side of the aisle can come to an agreement because we know that the end game is about the creation of jobs. The ideological difference about how we get there, I think, is what divides us; but I am a firm believer and will tell you--as will any businessman, any mayor, any county judge, any government official--that your balance sheet drives a lot of things.

I think fundamental to that balance sheet is how much you're in debt, because how much you are in debt in business is tied to your assets. In government, it's tied to your capacity to tax; and right now, one of the fundamental problems about growing jobs in this economy is the uncertainty that hangs over the job creators in America.

Let me just finish by saying that I urge support of H.J. Res. 48.

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