The President's partial freeze on discretionary spending is a laudable step, but a small one. The circumstances demand that we reconsider and restore the proper, limited role of government at every level.
Without reform, the excessive growth of government threatens our very liberty and prosperity. In recent months, the American people have made clear that they want government leaders to listen and act on the issues most important to them. We want results, not rhetoric.
That's an outdated Republican talking point that failed to account for the most recent Congressional Budget Office report released a few days ago. CBO's latest figures show the public debt increasing from $7.5 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2009 (which ended Sept. 30) to $11.6 trillion in 2014 and $14.3 trillion in 2019. That's an increase of about 55% in five years and 91% in 10 years, far less than the doubling and tripling of which McDonnell spoke.
McDonnell is even further off the mark if counting what's called the "gross" debt, which includes money the government owes to itself, chiefly in IOUs held by the Social Security trust funds. CBO's latest report shows the gross debt at $11.9 trillion for 2009, and expected to rise to $16.7 trillion and $20.6 trillion. That figures out to be increases of 40% and 73%.
The President and I agree on expanding the number of high-quality charter schools, and rewarding teachers for excellent performance. More school choices for parents and students mean more accountability and greater achievement.
A child's educational opportunity should be determined by her intellect and work ethic, not by her zip code.
Here in Virginia, we have the opportunity to be the first state on the East Coast to explore for and produce oil and natural gas offshore. But this Administrations policies are delaying offshore production, hindering nuclear energy expansion, and seeking to impose job-killing cap and trade energy taxes.
Now is the time to adopt innovative energy policies that create jobs and lower energy prices.
Republicans in Congress have offered legislation to reform healthcare, without shifting Medicaid costs to the states, without cutting Medicare, and without raising your taxes. We will do that by implementing common sense reforms, like letting families and businesses buy health insurance policies across state lines, and ending frivolous lawsuits against doctors an hospitals that drive up the cost of your healthcare.
And our solutions aren't thousand-page bills that no one has fully read, after being crafted behind closed doors with special interests.
That's a selective paraphrase of what Jefferson actually said in his first presidential inaugural address. What Jefferson really said in 1801 was: "a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement."
So Jefferson first said a wise government "shall restrain men from injuring one another," something that could today be taken as an endorsement of government regulation. By leaving that part out, McDonnell made Jefferson--founder of what has become the modern Democratic Party--sound a good bit more like an anti-tax, anti-regulation Republican than he was in reality.
It was Thomas Jefferson who called for "A wise and frugal Government which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry; and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." He was right. Today, the federal government is simply trying to do too much.
Last year, we were told that massive new federal spending would create more jobs 'immediately' and hold unemployment below 8%.In the past year, over three million Americans have lost their jobs, yet the Democratic Congress continues deficit spending, adding to the bureaucracy, and increasing the national debt on our children and grandchildren.
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The above quotations are from 2010 State of the Union address to Congress, plus the Republican Response: Jan. 27, 2010.
Click here for other excerpts from 2010 State of the Union address to Congress, plus the Republican Response: Jan. 27, 2010. Click here for other excerpts by Bob McDonnell. Click here for a profile of Bob McDonnell.
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