Fiscal Responsibility
When President Bush took office, he inherited a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion from President Clinton. When Mark took office last year, he inherited from President Bush a deficit of $1.3 trillion for 2009 alone and nearly $10 trillion more in deficits over the next 10 years. Mark is committed to getting our fiscal house in order so we can focus on what matters most - helping our businesses create jobs.
One of Mark's first votes as a member of Congress was against spending another $350 billion on the Wall Street bailout. Since then, he has voted against raising the national debt ceiling twice, and co-sponsored a pay-as-you-go law that requires Congress to save a dollar for every new dollar it spends. This is the same fiscally responsible rule that was originally signed into law by a Republican president and helped create record surpluses during the 1990s.
Last year, the conservative Club for Growth released a report that showed Mark had cut more pork barrel spending from the federal budget than any other Michigan Democrat - even more than Republican Reps. Candice Miller and Dave Camp. While Mark has fought to bring more of our tax dollars back to Michigan to create jobs here, he will continue to vote against projects like Maine lobster research that simply waste taxpayers' money.
Additionally, Mark was proud to support health care reform legislation which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts will cut the federal deficit by $1.3 trillion over the next two decades.
Mark knows it won't be easy to restore fiscal responsibility in Washington, but he has shown his commitment to getting our fiscal house in order by voting against wasteful spending that
will pass our debt onto future generations.
