Bob Corker on Budget & Economy

Claims Ford tried to add $280 billion to national debt

FORD: Everybody in our country--even children and newborns--owes the US government $28,000. In the last 6 years under my opponent's party's leadership, the debt has grown by almost $2 trillion. And the people who will pay it will be you and I and everyone else. I have a couple of simple answers. They're going to call me a liberal, but if they wanted to control the debt, they could have by now.

1. We ought to pass a balanced budget amendment.
2. We ought to move to a two-year budget cycles.
3. We ought to end all of this pork-barrel spending.
4. We ought to say to 16 federal agencies, out of 23, that if they can't audit themselves, then no more federal tax money.

Get control of our federal budget via efficiency

Voted YES on paying down federal debt by rating programs' effectiveness.

Proponents recommend voting YES because:

My amendment says we are going to take about $18 billion as a strong signal from the Congress that we want to support effective programs and we want the taxpayer dollars spent in a responsible way. My amendment doesn't take all of the $88 billion for the programs found by PART, realizing there may be points in time when another program is not meeting its goals and needs more money. So that flexibility is allowed in this particular amendment. It doesn't target any specific program. Almost worse than being rated ineffective, we have programs out there that have made absolutely no effort at all to measure their results. I believe these are the worst offenders. In the following years, I hope Congress will look at those programs to create accountability.

Opponents recommend voting NO because:

The effect of this amendment will simply be to cut domestic discretionary spending $18 billion. Understand the programs that have been identified in the PART program are results not proven. Here are programs affected: Border Patrol, Coast Guard search and rescue, high-intensity drug trafficking areas, LIHEAP, rural education, child abuse prevention, and treatment. If there is a problem in those programs, they ought to be fixed. We ought not to be cutting Border Patrol, Coast Guard search and rescue, high-intensity drug trafficking areas, LIHEAP, rural education, and the rest. I urge a "no" vote.