Natalie Gonnella
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After a dramatic conclusion to Washington's latest budget battle, Americans ended the week with the unfortunate and unnerving news that despite the latest debt deal the US has lost its AAA credit rating.
And with the ever present possibility of further downgrades, lawmakers have been quick to weigh in on the unprecedented move, with many Republican freshmen once again raising their voices on behalf of the 'Cut, Cap, Balance' proposal.
Advocating for substantial spending reform and offering 'we told you so's' as Washington contends with the possibility of further economic decline, here's a look at what a number of GOP newbies had to say in response to Friday's downgrade announcement:
Since Obama has been President, we have accumulated an unprecedented $4 trillion in new deficits. After 3 years, the President has yet to produce a plan to decrease spending or improve our economy. I've seen enough. As a result, I voted for a plan passed by the United States House of Representatives that would have trimmed almost $6 trillion in spending—Cut, Cap and Balance.
Sadly, the Senate and the President mocked this plan. Worse still, they refused to take action by even considering it in the Senate. Cut, Cap and Balance is a credible plan that would begin to properly right the ship..The American people get it—cut the spending—I pray the President finally understands.
Heeding the warnings of the rating agencies, Republicans in the House of Representatives took a different path and passed Cut, Cap and Balance legislation which would have brought structural change to the way Washington borrows and spends money. Regretfully, the Administration responded by calling the legislation an "empty political statement" and the President threatened a veto."
Simply put, if President Obama and Democrats in Congress had embraced Cut, Cap, and Balance and if the President were sincerely focused on the severe financial challenges facing the country instead of his re-election, this action by Standard and Poor's could have been avoided.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Both parties have contributed to our $14 trillion debt. But it is hard to say this crisis wasn’t predictable, because it was. House and Senate conservatives clearly predicted this, and also offered the only solution that could have prevented our downgrade with our Cut Cap and Balance plan...We must rescue our finances through a Balanced Budget Amendment, and we must do it soon. We must cut spending immediately. And we must get new leadership, and put in place people who have seen problems coming and offered credible solutions, rather than those who continue to misdiagnose and mismanage our economy.
Our legislation passed the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis but was flippantly rejected by both Senator Reid and President Obama as being ‘draconian.’
In Washington, where some seem to act like rhetoric matters more than facts, spin more than substance, and misdirection more than problem solving, I wonder how the Democrat deficit doubters will react to these S&P analysts. I urge Senator Reid to give Cut, Cap and Balancethe full and proper debate that it deserves before our economy veers more dangerously toward crisis. Alarms are sounding for a reason...because our fiscal house is at risk of burning down.
Given S&P's downgrade of our credit last night, I'm calling on the Senate and President to reconsider their position and pass this legislation. By passing "Cut, Cap, and Balance," and enacting comprehensive tax reform that closes "loopholes" allowing for lower marginal tax rates to grow the economy, we will solve the current fiscal crisis putting us on firm footing to make the the 21st century our best yet.
This is a blow to the United States, and it is a grim signal that we cannot continue to delay addressing our crippling debt. One of the reasons I opposed the recent deal to raise the debt ceiling was because it still left us vulnerable to the threat of a downgrade. The President and Congress must end business as usual in Washington and finally confront our debt crisis in a meaningful way with real cuts, serious budget reforms and entitlement reform.
