Understanding that yes, we are committing more resources than we thought we might be in protecting our homeland and prosecuting a war and so it's understandable that we would be going through a period of deficits.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The American people will eventually get hurt by this accumulated deficit. That's the problem. We have too much deficit. We have to find a solution.
The deficit - the U.S. knows our deficit is too large. We are committed to bringing it down. We are bringing it down. The deficit came in for fiscal year '05 at considerably below where it was the prior year.
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.
We are spending more as a percentage of our entire economy, almost 25 percent, than we have spent at any time since the end of World War II.
This deficit that we have threatens our very way of life, and everything needs to be on the table.
Well, I think what we need to remember is that budget deficits can impede economic activity.
We are in a bit of a policy box and it's going to require us being willing to give up one of the two, which is it's okay to take on more deficits but lets put in some massive spending. Alternatively to say, 'we're going to go through structural unemployment for a while because we want to address deficits.'
My hope is that we're going to be more strategic and focused as we look for a way to address the long-term deficit and debt issues that are affecting this nation.
When the economy is growing, there's a lot that can be done to deal with the deficit.
We're committed to working with Congress to doing what the president said he was always going to do, which is cut the deficit in half over the - over his first term.