Pat Toomey At CPAC: 'John Maynard Keynes Died A Long Time Ago'

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) took a break from the upper chamber's budget discussions on Thursday morning to visit CPAC, where he called for liberals to drop the idea that government spending is beneficial.

"Could we just agree that's ridiculous? John Maynard Keynes died a long time ago, I wish the man could just rest in peace," he said, referring to the economist.

Toomey is a staunch budget hawk, and used his remarks to talk about the need to shrink government spending, end subsidies and lower taxes. He said he knows it will be tough for Republicans in Congress to get some policies through the Obama White House. But they can still try.

"On the spending side, I think we can not only try but we can win," he said. "The American people are with us. They understand that you can't borrow and spend your way to prosperity. They want us to get spending under control. And no spending bill gets to the president unless it's passed through the House and the Senate first. We have some say in this."

Below, a liveblog of the latest updates from CPAC: