Congressional delegation has differing ideas on federal budget

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Fourth District U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler said the U.S. House did its job by cutting the federal budget by $100 million, but Sen. Claire McCaskill said those cuts cannot stand alone.

The comments came as the members of the Missouri congressional delegation addressed a meeting of the state chamber of commerce in the capital city Wednesday. Also present and addressing the group was Sen. Roy Blunt. Members of the state congressional delegation have been touring the state this week as Congress takes a break.

Currently, federal lawmakers are struggling to put together a continuing resolution to keep the federal government running until the start of the new fiscal year Sept. 30. Hartzler said the House of Representatives did its job in a marathon session that covered more than 100 hours as the body took up more than 500 amendments.

She highlighted cuts to programs such as abortion services at Planned Parenthood, needle exchange programs for drug addicts in New York City, cutting the pay for Obama administration "czars" and defunding the national health care plan as triumphs.

"There's a lot of things the federal government is doing that it shouldn't be doing," Hartzler said. "We wound up terminating 149 federal programs. "This is tough stuff, but it's needed. It's the kind of tough love our country needs now and I'm encouraged that we're turning things around."

But McCaskill said turning the budget around will take more than just cutting politically unpopular programs.

"The fact that we did all of the cuts in the House last week, essentially all of the cuts, in 18 percent of the budget is not a good sign," McCaskill said. "Sometimes winning elections and solving hard problems are like oil and water, and we've got to figure out a way we get those two things out of the way and that we sit down and just try to solve the problem."

McCaskill favors a combination of tax reforms, cuts to entitlements and cuts to spending. McCaskill said she is confident a spending deal can be worked out between the Democratic controlled Senate and the Republican lead House.

Blunt told conference attendees that the government needed to rein in the federal debt. He said the federal government will spend $3.8 trillion this year, while bringing in $2.2 trillion.

"Now, those numbers don't work," Blunt said. "We have to figure out a way to equalize those numbers to where the spending number and the income number is the same."

"And the problem is not that the American people aren't paying enough taxes, it's that the government is spending too much money."