Honeywell Chairman and CEO Dave Cote appeared on PBS’ “Nightly Business Report” to discuss the company, his global 2011 economic outlook, engineering, and the U.S. deficit.
Cote, a member of the U.S. Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, said in the interview that the U.S. cannot be a strong power if it one day ends up paying $1 trillion a year in interest on the national debt.
“I’ve been very pleased with the dialogue that I’ve seen going on in the Senate, that’s been occurring in the House, and the leadership that we’re seeing from the President on this,” said Cote, a member of the U.S. Deficit Commission. “And, all of those things have to come together, but I have never seen such hysteria, histrionics, and hyperbole as that which surrounds government budgeting. If you take a look at our fiscal commission proposal for example, the growth rate in government spending, the plan is for government spending to grow 5 percent a year for the next 10 years. The commission proposal has it growing 4 percent a year instead of 5. Yet, you see words like draconian, cut, slash, hurting every constituency you can think of.”
For more information, watch the interview that aired on PBS or watch the extended web-only interview.
