WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo), a member of the Senate Leadership Whip team, appeared on Fox Business Network with host Alexis Glick.  The following are excerpts from the program:

What does President Obama need to do to calm the fear and anxiety in the marketplace?

BARRASSO: Every President needs to instill confidence in the American people, and I support that effort. What we saw, last week was secrecy and scare tactics used to get a large spending bill passed. And I think that those scare tactics, you used the word fear, those are the things that have given Americans great concern.  If they sense that from their President, well then that’s going to ripple across the nation.

BARRASSO: We need to make the tough decisions right now, to limit our spending.  I think that to raise our taxes is the wrong way to go, because that’s taxes on small business, and small business is the engine that drives our economy.

How do we fix the financial crisis?

BARRASSO: The stock market is down 50%, the lowest point in 12 years. Americans right now need to have confidence instilled. I just got back from Wyoming where people have absolute concerns about this. We’re a resilient nation, we will come back stronger than ever from this but we have to get our financial house in order.  The amount of spending that we’re doing right now doesn’t work for our own homes and it doesn’t work for America.

 

Wyoming’s unemployment rate is half the national average & foreclosures are well below average. What is happening in Wyoming that these statistics are so terrific?

BARRASSO: Wyoming gets it right, Washington gets it wrong. In Wyoming we balance our budget every year, we don’t do any deficit spending. People live within their means—that’s a great model for America. I was in the State Senate in Wyoming for 5 years. There are no massive bills with hidden spending. You can’t lard them up, you can’t fill them with pork. This extraneous spending would never pass if not hidden. Everything really does see the light of day in Wyoming. In Washington it doesn’t work that way. Wyoming is a terrific place and we do it right.

Who is going to pay?

 BARRASSO: Everybody in America has a huge incentive to get it right. We need to get it right not just for us but for our kids and our grandkids. When I was in a high school out in Kemmerer, one student shouted “Who’s going to pay for this?” and another student called back “You are” to the other student. That’s the concern, and we don’t want this large debt on our kids and our grandkids.

BARRASSO: We need to get our financial house in order and the way you do that is to cut spending. The Democrat congress just passed the largest spending bill in the history of the country. It wasn’t timely, targeted, or temporary. I think that was too big.  Did we really need this spending that’s not going to come into play for eight years?