CBO’s 2013 Economic Outlook Report

This week’s release of the Congressional Budget Office’s 2013 Economic Outlook report underscores the need for serious reforms to get our economy moving in the right direction again. The report projects that the national debt will increase by $10 trillion over the next ten years reaching $26 trillion with public-held debt maintaining another historically high level of 77% of GDP. The report also predicted that "economic growth will remain slow this year," and the unemployment rate will hover at 7.5% for six years.

This report serves as a reminder of what House Republicans have been saying for years: we must get our nation’s spending under control. If the President wants to change our economic trajectory, he should join our efforts to rein in out-of-control government spending.

As we approach the March 1st deadline for the sequester to kick in, the media has praised President Obama for proposing solutions to avoid it. Unfortunately, they are leaving out an important part of the story: the Republican-led House has voted twice to replace the sequester with responsible spending cuts.

Nine months before the President’s speech this week, the House passed the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act, a bill that proposed vital savings without the across-the-board spending cuts in Obama’s sequester. We also passed The Spending Reduction Act on December 20, 2012 that would have replaced the sequester and provided an additional $200 billion in savings over ten years.

The President can continue to give lofty speeches to make the American people believe that he has a plan to replace his sequester, but I believe my constituents deserve to know that House Republicans put our plan on the table – twice. I will continue to update you in the coming weeks on my continued efforts to reduce our unsustainable levels of government spending.