CNN Newsroom: Interview With Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN)
Interview
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Well, Jim, I think if we just went back to 2019 levels, we would actually have a surplus now of spending, because our revenues have increased that much since then. I think if we would just put everybody together and start talking instead of just fighting.
You know, I voted against going through the debt ceiling under Trump, and you know, I thought it would be disingenuous if I continued on this stage. You know, the Republican plan, it made some cuts, but it is Washington economics or accounting. It just cut the rate of growth, it still had a 1.5 trillion additional dollars every year and in 10 years, we would be at $17 trillion additional debt, and that would be -- our total debt would be around $47 trillion.
And of course, the sacred cow is always the Pentagon, where under their last accounting or audit, I guess you'd call it, there's over a billion dollars unaccounted for.
You know, we can't afford to keep saving this much money. We're not saving anything and not --
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Well, it's been used in the past. In 2011, then Vice President Biden was given the task under President Obama to do -- to negotiate that, and so it's not unheard of.
Now, everybody is acting like it's never done, but it is being done, and at some point, we never -- it never happens under the budget process and it never will, and this is just a way that the masses of, I guess the unclean masses of congressmen that don't sit at that table have that opportunity to do that.
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I'm willing to take that risk, because the debt is going to cripple us. You know, in the last two years, if you made $100,000.00 two years ago, it's now worth $85,000.00. We're obviously not doing something right, and this incredible debt that we're incurring and inflation, just look at it in the pumps, it's hitting working people very hard. Maybe it isn't so much in the beltway, but it sure as heck is here in East Tennessee, and I just don't think we can continue down there.
I used to say, we're charging our grandkids; man, it's our great grandchildren that will never be able to pay this debt back. It's just nonsensical, the methods that we are using and the accounting we're using and it kind of reminds me of some guys I used to serve in the legislature way back in Tennessee, and Tennessee is a balanced budget state, we have an A rating.
You know, there is zero debt, no income tax, but you know, they just tried to kick the can down and get through the next election. And that's exactly what this debt ceiling is.
And you know, and honestly, you and I understand that and accounting people understand it, the people in the banking world and the money changers in the world, they understand it, but the average citizen just says, hey, why do you keep spending money you don't have? That's where I'm at.
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This happens a lot, Jim. It was cut off a little bit.
I was probably speaking more from a Christian perspective. I also went on said, we need real revival in this country. I feel like we've turned from the Lord and I know that maybe makes people's heads spin off sometimes when they hear somebody like me may say that.
But it's just --
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Well, they don't have our freedom either. They don't have a Second Amendment that -- and also -- you know, what happens is you'll take away the --
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Okay. She broke over 20 laws. What law are you going to do? You know, now you have people that can print guns, you know, Timothy McVeigh 150 pounds of fertilizer and diesel fuel. He killed over a hundred people, a bunch of innocent folks. We've got evil in this world, we've got to address it.
We know we had a bill last year, Marsha Blackburn had it in the Senate, and we had it over in the House that would have put guards in our schools and it was blocked.
The president said, I want the guns. We're not going to do this. And we weren't even allowed a hearing on it in the state -- in the House of Representatives, in the People's House.
Now why wouldn't you want to put more people secure and you know, you enjoy that at CNN. You enjoy the fact that you can't walk into the headquarters of CNN, there's an armed guard out front.
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And I just don't see that --
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That's the --
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Jim, I don't know the situation there, but tell me how you get the guns back? How do you get them out?
There are so many guns out there. I just think that we've got a mental health issue in this country, we ought to address that as well. And you know, these red flag laws, some say they work, some say they don't. I'd like to see some real numbers on that.
We had a -- remember we had an assault weapons ban in this country and the Justice Department came back and said it's not reducing mass shootings at all, and so they did away with it. So I don't know what the answer is going to be with that.
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I would love to, Jim.
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And I'm sorry, I'm not in Washington tonight. I'm sorry I am not in Washington tonight for that delicious chicken dinner.
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