Washington, D.C. – Congressman David Schweikert (R-AZ), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, went on FOX News’ Happening Now with Jon Scott Wednesday to discuss the disingenuous talk coming from the White House and the need to pass a solution that will curve our debt. Here is the video and excerpts from the interview.
ON PRESIDENT’S SO-CALLED “BALANCED APPROACH”:
“Some of the phone calls we had in our office are people are asking us to vote for the President’s plan. The President still hasn’t put something on paper yet, and yet they pretend like they’re actually being a genuine partner in this negotiation.”
“His plan is ethereal, it’s air. How do you score a speech? Look, my great frustration is from the White House. We’re seeing Campaigner-in-Chief, not someone that’s trying to put together a plan that’s good for this country because we don’t have a plan that’s on paper from him. How do you deal with that? Once again over here in the House we’re doing the heavy lifting. We have never gotten something from the Senate. We did our Cut, Cap and Balance, we also did a budget bill. We still get nothing from the Senate, we get nothing from the White House, and we’re taking the responsibility for actually doing the drafting and doing the heavy lifting around here.”
ON GOP ONLY CONTROLLING HALF OF ONE BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT:
“I need to even take that a bit further. A lot of us got elected both with Tea Party Conservatives, but even a number of moderate Democrats that understand we’re in real financial trouble. This is much more than raising the debt ceiling. Go back and read the Moody’s letter and the S&P letter. This is about the scale of our debt, and we do some crazy things in this country. Do you know we guarantee sovereign debt for Egypt? We have huge liabilities out there–monstrous. That’s the real battle. And I’m hoping that this, in some ways, is just the first salvo in saving us fiscally.”
ON THE PRESIDENT’S DEMAGOGUERY:
“What he’s overstating is the consequences, the mechanics. And it would be a much more honest, genuine discussion not to walk in and say, we’re going to default. We’re not going to default. Default is not paying the interest on the coupons on the bonds we’ve sold. It would be a much more genuine and honest discussion if we talked about the one-third of Federal spending. One-third of this Federal Government that exists solely on borrowing. That actually, in many ways, a bigger, more honest and more difficult discussion.”
“One other thing, when the President goes up to a microphone and says, ‘the depreciation on jets, the taxing of all fossil fuels, or even the Bush/Obama tax extensions’… do you realize all those together, if they were eliminated, takes care of one-half an hour of borrowing a day? This is political theater that comes from the White House, not honest help.”
ON SPEAKER BOEHNER’S PLAN:
“First off, with the Speaker himself. Look, I grew up around politics. Speaker Boehner is singularly one of the most impressive people I’ve met in my life. On the Boehner plan, I’m one of those leaning ‘no’ on the plan. I’m waiting to see the new scoring because it is about the math. We need to do something that’s genuine and honest, but much more. The markets that S&P and Moody’s are going to downgrade us unless we put together a package; that’s big enough. And even then, I’m fearful of anything that can get through the Senate because the Left is just apoplectic. We are going to get a downgrade. Now, for future discussion we should actually have a discussion on what that will really mean in the markets.”