House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) today released the following statement after the president delivered his annual State of the Union address:
"What we heard from the President sounded like a reasoned approach to cutting spending and growing the economy, but we've learned the hard way that his actions prove otherwise. I continue to agree with about 80 percent of what the president says, but disagree with 80 percent of what he actually does.
The president missed an opportunity for bold action by failing to sign on to the House-passed proposal to roll back government funding to 2008 levels – before the expensive and unsuccessful taxpayer-funded bailouts and stimulus programs were put into place. It's the least he could do after increasing non-defense discretionary spending by 84 percent between 2008 and 2010. Instead, he disappointed the American people by giving big themes for economic growth, but small ideas on how to get there.
Under the president's economic policies, we've seen not only our first, but our second trillion dollar deficit in our nation's history. And for the last two years, almost without exception – unemployment has hovered around 10 percent each month. My question for the president is 'how is continuing down the road to national bankruptcy and record unemployment going to make us more competitive?'
Targeted investments, to the American people, mean more borrowing and more spending that we simply cannot afford. After two years, it's clear we can't borrow, spend, and bail out our way to economic prosperity. Nothing in the president's speech leads me to believe the future will be any different.
"If the president wants to see a real plan for the future, look at the actions taken by House Republicans just over the last three weeks. We voted to reduce the deficit by $700 billion and to reduce spending by more than $2.6 trillion by repealing Obamacare. We voted to roll spending back to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving more than $100 billion over the next 12 months. We voted to save $617 million by ending taxpayer funding for candidates and conventions. We've voted to ban Congressional earmarks and cut our own budget by five percent. And we've changed the culture of the House from having weekly votes to create more government programs and more spending, to weekly "YouCut" votes to cut spending and eliminate wasteful government programs.
The American people know you don't simply 'win' the future – you plan for it. And if the president's plan is more borrowing and more spending to pave the way to American bankruptcy, I can't follow him down that road."
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