I, for one, believe that revenue has to increase. I think every American would pay more if they thought spending was going to be cut and the budget brought to balance.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The polls are with us on this. They say the American people, more than anything, want to see spending cuts rather than tax increases.
Raise the taxes, and we find less money in our pockets. Lower the taxes, and we've got more money in those pockets, and we spend it on all kinds of things.
The American people want us to stop spending. And so let's just give them some certainty. Let's extend the tax - the existing tax cuts. And then let's give some more tax breaks to small businesses and large. And then maybe the American people will have some confidence.
My point is cutting spending shouldn't be reliant on the debt limit though. It's something we have to do. The good news for America is, leaders in both parties, the president, believe that we have to have significant deficit reduction. So the intent is there. And I think what America is going to demand is that our leaders come together.
I believed the only thing that could turn around this government spending and mounting debt would be if the people rose up.
Traditionally, the way deficits have been cut is you hold expenditures more or less constant in real dollars and then let growth come in to fill it up.
The problem is government spends too much. So raising taxes is what politicians do, instead of reducing spending.
A budget matters to Americans who can't afford to see their taxes go up or lose the jobs that would be destroyed in the process.
I continue to vote against such spending increases, but sometimes I think some of my Republican colleagues forgot that we were sent here to shrink the federal government, not to grow it.
Much fiscal policy is implemented, not through spending increases, but through tax credits and other so-called tax expenditures. The markets should respond to them as they do spending cuts, with little contraction in economic activity.