Washington, D.C. – Congressman David Schweikert (R-AZ), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, appeared on Fox Business’ Freedom Watch Friday night to discuss the ongoing budget talks on Capitol Hill with Vice President Biden. Here is the video and excerpts from the interview:

SCHWEIKERT ON IF TAX INCREASES ARE OFF THE TABLE DURING BIDEN, CAPITOL HILL BUDGET TALKS:

"Absolutely. It’s for an obvious reason. The economy is struggling and you don’t go and pound on a struggling economy with new taxes. It’s basic economics. I am one of the ones that is not particularly optimistic. I am absolutely frustrated with what I see going on. Here is my reason. I believe a lot of folks on Democrat side have repeatedly had this mantra of ‘if we raise taxes that fixes the problem’ and they have not been telling their constituents the truth about the scale of the financial devastation we’re up against."

SCHWEIKERT ON IF PRESIDENT OBAMA IS SERIOUS ABOUT BUDGET TALKS:

"Well, think about it, if you were trying to create a Chinese wall, where the President has a plausible deniability, you send out the Vice President to act as your stalking horse, and my fear, is that is what is going on. At the same time, you have people like Secretary Geithner, using the word ‘default’ which is almost unconscionable. The word default, means we don’t pay the interest on our coupons. When a bond comes due we don’t refinance it out. We have plenty of cash flow to do that. We have a situation already where they are using words that don’t actually describe reality. How do you have a honest discussion?"

SCHWEIKERT ON IF WE ARE ON THE VERGE OF A DOUBLE DIP RECESSION:

"I was looking at some numbers just a few minutes ago before we went on air. I don’t think we are going to have a double dip. But, I am really fearful that we are going to hit a level of stagnation, where we lay here flat lined. A lot of it is because if you are a business, you are trying to make the decision, do you take your capital, do you invest it and do you take the risk? When you have the Dodd-Franks out there and when you have this debt laying over you and a President and a Congress that is not telling you what the future rules are, what are your obligations going to be? What is the regulatory environment going to be? No one is going to open up their checkbook and start investing, and that is devastating."

SCHWEIKERT ON THE SERIOUSNESS OF OUR DEBT AND BORROWING:

"As soon as I leave here, I’m on my way to do a town hall in Tempe. How do you explain to a lot of good citizens who basically have been lied to by Washington? Washington has not told them the truth for decades, and look them in the eye, and say, ‘understand that one-third of the federal government spending is done through debt.’ Understand, when we hit the debt ceiling, that’s our problem."

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