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After the $700 billion bailout, the trillion-dollar stimulus, and the massive budget bill with over 9,000 earmarks, many of you implored Washington to please stop spending money we don't have. But, instead of cutting, we saw an unprecedented explosion of government spending and debt, unlike anything we have seen in the history of our country.

A trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

What's hurting the U.S. economy is total government spending. The deficit is an indicator that the government is spending so much money that it can't even get around to stealing all of the money that it wants to spend. But the tip of the iceberg is not what hit the Titanic - it was the 90 percent of the iceberg under water.

When George W. Bush entered office, the national debt was $5 trillion. When he left, it was $10 trillion. I think the administration spent too much money.

We can't get to the $4 trillion in savings that we need by just cutting the 12 percent of the budget that pays for things like medical research and education funding and food inspectors and the weather service. And we can't just do it by making seniors pay more for Medicare.

Unemployment, foreclosures, bankruptcy - the cure is not more government spending, but helping businesses create jobs.

Well, I think the president has clearly submitted us a tight budget, but it's what's called for if we're going to get spending under control and keep the economy moving in the right direction, with economic growth and job creation activity.

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.

We are not spending the Federal Government's money, we are spending the taxpayer's money, and it must be spent n a way which guarantees his money's worth and yields the fullest possible benefit to the people being helped.