Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling was politically frank with high school students at Boys State on Wednesday, telling them both parties have failed to control the federal budget and that neither Congress nor the American people seem to have the will to cut spending.
“You guys are the ones who are going to have to worry about this,” Bolling told the 700 high school students attending the American Legion-sponsored event this week at Liberty University.
Citing the debt crisis in Greece that has depressed markets worldwide, Bolling said, “Don’t think for a minute that that can’t happen in the United States of America.”
The U.S. debt of $14.3 trillion means spending must be reduced “on every level,” including entitlements such as Medicare, Bolling said.
But many members of Congress abandoned Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan that sought to curb spending because “they don’t think further ahead than the next election,” the lieutenant governor said.
Bolling said he was pessimistic because most Americans seem opposed to spending cuts in Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs that make up half the nation’s budget.
Bolling also said he thinks Mitt Romney is the only Republican presidential candidate who can win in 2012, and that he will be chairman of Romney’s campaign in Virginia just as he was in 2008.
Responding to a student’s question about his outlook for the 2012 presidential election, Bolling said its outcome “depends on how the economy performs” and that unless it improves, President Obama will have trouble carrying Virginia and winning re-election.
But Republicans’ chances also depend heavily on which candidate the party nominates, Bolling said.
Most of the potential GOP candidates “have a good story” to tell voters, Bolling said, but many of them can’t appeal to independent voters.
Only one Republican candidate can appeal to both the party’s base voters and to moderate and independent voters, “and that is Mitt Romney,” Bolling said.
After Bolling backed Romney’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid, Romney joined him at fundraising events in Virginia during Bolling’s successful run for re-election as lieutenant governor in 2009.
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