I mean, the Obama position has been, 'We think government ought to be spending this money, not the people who earn it.'
Eric Cantor
What the president announced yesterday, is that somehow magically, if we just continue to prime the pump of taxpayer dollars, we're going to see magically an economic recovery.
The Republicans have put together serious detailed counter-proposals when we have objected to this administration's agenda. And so, I want to tell the President and remind him again, we're not voting no for political expediency. We've got our principles, and we're going to stand up and defend those.
If the President says, oh, Washington's got to change, and people are doubting whether my change can really happen, I think instead what the public's begun to see is the change they're seeing is not the change they voted for.
Look, we know we screwed up when we were in the majority. We fell in love with power. We spent way too much money - especially on earmarks. There was too much corruption when we ran this place. We were guilty. And that's why we lost.
We believe that if you put in place the mechanisms that allow for personal choice as far as Medicare is concerned, as well as the programs in Medicaid, that we can actually get to a better result and do what most Americans are learning how to do, which is to do more with less.
We will cut programs, we will try to rein in the size of the bureaucracy. We will bring federal pay scales that have become so exaggerated into line with market rates.
You know, there are people making a lot of money in this country who can actually afford their own health care. We are in a situation where we got a safety net in place in this country for people who frankly don't need one. We got to focus on making sure we got a safety net for those who actually need it.
The issue for us is rebuilding a governing majority that is comfortable with differences that can transcend the divisiveness and unify behind the principles that we know our party has succeeded on.
Again, the American people expect us to do what they are doing. It's tightening the belt, it's learning how to do more with less. That's a reality today, and we've got to do that in order to get the private sector growing.
I mean, look, Nancy Pelosi said in the very beginning this is going to be the most open, honest and ethical Congress in history. And what we're seeing is she's breaking that promise every day.
It's all about the fungibility and money. If Planned Parenthood accesses hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money and they use that for other purposes, then they can use other dollars to fund abortion.
We as Republicans understand that we have got to protect these... entitlement programs - these entitlement programs for our seniors today. And we have to sit down and have a discussion. We need more ideas on the table.
In a perfect world we would bring corporate tax rates down to 25% or less so we can get competitive in the world economy. Ultimately, I would love to see a flat tax.
You know, we have a fiscal train wreck before us. And unless we act, and act deliberately, we're not going to enable our kids to have what we have. It's plain and simple as that.
We believe very strongly that you stop that denial of coverage by promoting choice. Let people make the decisions.
Well, if Democratic members in the House elect Nancy Pelosi as their leader, it's almost as if they just didn't get the message from the voters this election. I mean, the voters outright rejected the agenda that she's been about. And here they're going to put her back in charge.
We know that appropriators will fight these cutbacks. But by eliminating earmarks, we can stop the horse trading that grows agency budgets.
It is time for us to insist that we are accountable for the money that we are spending.
I am hopeful for the American people that we can actually improve the outlook for bringing down costs in health care.
We've had Town Hall meetings, we've witnessed election after election, in which the American people have taken a position on the President's health care bill. And the bottom line is the people don't like this bill. They don't want it.
We have a plan that creates universal access programs at the state level which allows folks to access insurance if they're denied by their insurer.
And basically, the sense of the 'Pledge to America' is this: Republicans understand when we were in charge, we got fired in '06. We spent too much money. We defied the trust that the people had put in us. And we know that there is a better way.
People have to take responsibility for themselves. We need to get the housing industry going again. We don't need government intervening in every step.
Whether it's people walking off 'The View' when Bill O'Reilly makes a statement about radical Islam or Juan Williams being fired for expressing his opinion, over-reaching political correctness is chipping away at the fundamental American freedoms of speech and expression.
I am not for raising taxes in a recession, especially when it comes to job creators that we need so desperately to start creating jobs again.
But, as we've seen over the last several months, the people in this country are very dissatisfied with the direction that this administration is taking this country. And what we heard last night was absolutely the ignoring of that fact. It was: We're going to continue with this agenda. In fact, we're going to double down on healthcare.
Now the proposal is yet again another $150 billion before we start to think about a freeze. But $150 billion spent on more government programs; monies being created to direct and what kind of jobs that Washington thinks ought to be created. Come on. I mean there is a government that can help, and the government can also hurt.
The American people elected us here to cut spending so we can create an environment for jobs in America. The House has acted. We have demonstrated that we want to see spending, discretionary spending, brought down to levels of 2008. We've seen no counteraction. We have seen no position that has been expressed by the other side at all.
What this bill says is it reiterates again the deadline, and that the Senate should act before the deadline, and that's what the American people are expecting.
The bill then says if the Senate does not act, then H.R. 1 (the House-passed bill that cuts $61 billion) will be the law of the land. In addition to that, it says that if all else fails, and the Senate brings about a shutdown, then members should not get their pay.
