American families know what it means to live within a budget — only spending what you can afford and saving where you can — this is a common-sense approach to making ends meet to which our government must return.

Democrats understand that the federal budget deficit, born of reckless spending and declining tax revenues driven by the Bush tax cuts, endangers our country’s economic future. We are committed to policies that reduce the deficit and set the country on a path to sustained growth.

My colleagues across the aisle have been quick to sound the alarm on rising deficits, while failing to mention that their support for financial deregulation and reliance on profligate spending added trillions of dollars to the national debt and precipitated the current recession.

Many Republicans say we must take action to cut the deficit immediately, regardless of the effect on our economic recovery. They stalled extending unemployment benefits and providing support for states that would prevent teacher layoffs and drastic cuts to medical care for the poor. This argument, that deficit reduction must come at the expense of necessary aid in the near term, represents a false choice that disregards much recent history.

The years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis saw an unholy alliance between Wall Street and Bush-era policies lay the foundation for economic disaster. Free market fundamentalists pushed through legislation to limit supervision of Wall Street, repealing Glass-Steagall and defunding regulatory agencies designed to protect the economy from corporate greed.

When Wall Street recklessness hit Main Street, Democrats stepped up with solutions.

Supporting tax cuts and incentives for small businesses, energy-efficient initiatives like Cash for Clunkers and investments in infrastructure and technology, Democrats pulled the economy back from the brink and spearheaded policies that got Americans spending and businesses hiring.

Thanks to the recovery act, businesses are finding a new home in the U.S. House of Representatives’ 15th District (which includes the Downriver communities of Brownstown Township, Flat Rock, Huron Township, Rockwood, Romulus, Taylor and Woodhaven as well as Dearborn Heights, Inkster, Sumpter Township, part of Dearborn, eastern Washtenaw County and all of Monroe County).

Ann Arbor car battery-maker A123 Systems will open factories in Romulus and Brownstown. Sakti3, a developer of lithium-ion batteries, will create over 100 jobs at its new Michigan headquarters.

In Monroe, Ventower Industries will power the future by manufacturing up to 300 wind turbine towers each year and employing nearly 200 Michiganders in the process.

Auto companies, the backbone of Michigan’s economy, have also rebounded.

Since the worst of the recession, American automakers have added 55,000 new jobs, a welcome sign in an economy that is steadily gaining jobs and expanding output.

Yet this is not enough.

Millions of Americans are still without jobs, a reality evident in the double-digit unemployment that continues to plague Michigan. Besides sluggish growth, another looming menace, a $1.47 trillion deficit and a $13 trillion national debt, threatens our nation’s financial health.

So Democrats took action by tackling health care reform, which means not only healthier Americans, but also healthier fiscal policy.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act both grants millions of Americans access to quality, affordable care and works to contain the spiraling health care costs that dampened productivity and held hostage government and household budgets.

According to nonpartisan estimates, the new law will reduce the federal deficit by $124 billion over the next 10 years and by $1.2 trillion over the following 10 years.

The health care law is only part of what Democrats are doing to rein in the deficit.

The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act makes it mandatory to offset policies that increase spending or reduce revenues. While PAYGO helped to produce a surplus under President Clinton, President George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress allowed this requirement to expire in 2002.

Democrats are also fighting for increased oversight of government spending, an issue I have championed as the leader of numerous congressional investigations thatuncovered waste at the Pentagon, including some very expensive screws and $600 toilet seats.

The Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act continues this important work by cracking down on over $296 billion of Pentagon cost overruns and the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act makes strides toward the president’s goal of reducing government waste by $50 billion by 2012.

Democrats understand the danger posed by run-away deficits. Deficits distort the market forces that allow our economy to function efficiently and can make it more difficult for small businesses and ordinary Americans to borrow the money they need.

They also make another financial meltdown more likely and slow our progress out of recession by making consumers less likely to spend, businesses more hesitant to expand their payrolls, and investors quicker to flee at any sign of a crash.

Democrats know that the deficit is a challenge too dire to shirk with partisan bickering and politics as usual. America will emerge stronger from this economic nightmare, but only if we continue to move forward from the shortsighted policies of the past.

Read this at the News Herald