HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER JOHN BOEHNER:
 
Good morning everyone.  We had a joint meeting of the House and Senate Conference to talk about the moment that we find ourselves in.  The budget that we have before the Congress spends too much, it taxes too much and it borrows too much from our kids and grandkids.  Short term this will hurt our economy and hurt jobs.  In the long term, the consequences of this budget will be more grave for our children and grandchildren tripling us into unsustainable debt that will be on their backs.  And I think it is unconscionable for us to deal with the challenges we’re dealing with by doing nothing more than mortgaging the future of our kids and our grandkids.
 
You know, the Greatest Generation is called the Greatest Generation because it met the challenge that America faced.  It was willing to make the sacrifices for our country so that our country could enjoy the blessings of liberty.  This budget puts all the sacrifice, not on this generation, but on our kids and our grandkids.  Republicans in the House will offer a better solution.  A better solution that will be less on spending, less on taxes, and a lot less on debt for our kids and grandkids.
 
SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL:
 
Thank you very much.  Good morning everyone.  What we are facing here is a mountain of debt.  The Democratic budget will double the national debt in five years and triple it in ten.  Looking at it another way, they will accumulate more debt than all of the Presidents from George Washington up to and through George W. Bush.
 
This is indeed an explosion of taxation and debt and spending.  And as Leader Boehner has indicated, obviously this will have to be paid for by our children.  Every American generation from the very beginning, right up to the present, has always felt that it could and in fact did leave the country in better shape for its children than it was for themselves.  If this budget passes, that American dream is in serious doubt.  That’s why you see Senate and House Republicans behind us in virtual unity in opposition to this plan which spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much.