U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren's statement on the State of the Union address:
A simple reflection on tonight's State Of The Union speech: in 2009 President Obama promised, “Today I am pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office” at his fiscal responsibility summit in February of that year.
Then, during his address to a joint session of Congress on September 9th of 2009, he said "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.”
Instead, in the intervening four years, the deficit has not shrunk, and the debt has grown by $5.8 trillion.
With the President this evening saying: "Nothing I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime” I think even the most impartial observer would conclude he simply has no credibility left at this point.
The bottom line is we have seen in Illinois exactly what the outcome of the Obama era policies are. We’ve seen first-hand as the state has increased taxes, increased spending…. And lost jobs. The state continues to come apart at the seams. That’s what will happen at the Federal level too as a result of the president’s policies. We know this. We’ve seen it before first hand in our state. And if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve already got.
