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The Republicans in the House and the Bush administration are bankrupting this country.

Our debt is out of control. What was a fiscal challenge is now a fiscal crisis. We cannot deny it; instead we must, as Americans, confront it responsibly. And that is exactly what Republicans pledge to do.

And so we go over the cliff fiscally, and our Republican friends try to pin the blame on discretionary domestic spending, including spending for security. We pass budget resolutions that fall far short.

What our Republican friends are doing, if we look at what they do and not what they say, they have decided that the most important thing in this country is to increase payments for interest on the national debt.

Remember, Republican economic policies quadrupled the debt before I took office and doubled it after I left. We simply can't afford to double-down on trickle-down.

Republicans in Congress boosted the economy by cutting taxes and ending programs that don't work.

The Republican Party is terrific at determining how a program will impact the federal budget, but we're not nearly as good as the Democrats in explaining to people how our agenda will directly benefit them and their families.

The country - or the government - is headed for bankruptcy. So we're going to be continuing to speak out against corporate welfare as something that hurts everybody except those direct beneficiaries.

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.

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.