Issue Position: Balancing the Budget

Issue Position

We face a long-term debt problem, one that will only be resolved through a bipartisan and common-sense approach using the realities as they exist, not as we wish them to be. And just as this problem wasn't created overnight, it won't be solved overnight.

To address we should follow a few basic principles:

* Any long-term solution must begin with a short-term focus on creating jobs and growing the economy
* We must protect children and the poor
* We must continue health care reform to lower health care costs which is the largest driver of our debt
* All areas of the budget, including defense, must be examined
* To stay international competitive in cutting edge technologies, we must invest in innovation and basic research and development

Any discussion of our national debt should begin with an understanding of how we got here. At the end of the 1990's, our country was running a yearly budget surplus of $230 billion. It was estimated we would be able to pay off the entire national debt within a decade. However over the next eight years the nation undertook a number of policies that ballooned the deficit and the debt and aided by the 2008 great recession, plunged our budget into the red.

It is clear we must learn from our past and move away from policies that haven't worked if we are to solve our long-term budget problem.

I have been working very hard to move the nation away from those policies. Facing the worst economic recession since the Great Depression has not made our job any easier. Unlike many who have simply talked about the deficit and the debt, I have actually taken action in Congress:

* I voted against the TARP bank bailout, twice
* I voted to cut $40 billion in spending in the 2011 budget
* I fought for and won long-term changes to the Medicare reimbursement system that will reward quality of service and not quantity, saving $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years. The Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan referee of legislation, notes health insurance reform overall will reduce the debt by $1.2 trillion over 20 years
* I supported legislation to create a bi-partisan Debt Commission modeled after the Base Closure commission to force Congress to vote on a concrete plan to reduce the debt and I support the President Debt Commission's efforts
* I co-sponsored an amendment to the CLEAR Act to close tax loopholes used by the oil and gas industry to avoid royalty payments to taxpayers and use that money to pay down the debt
* I voted against the Iraq War and this year's un-paid for, off-budget supplemental "emergency" spending bill to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

I want you to know that I take fiscal responsibility seriously and will continue to advocate for policies that reduce the national debt, encourage transparency in the budgeting process, and prioritize investments critical to our economic future. We cannot afford to jeopardize the long-term fiscal health of this country by doubling down on tax cuts for a small number of the wealthiest Americans and paying for them with money borrowed from overseas to be repaid by our grandchildren.

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