[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 34 (Thursday, February 26, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H2866]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  COMMISSION WITH TEETH: FORCING CONGRESS TO ADDRESS ENTITLEMENT ISSUE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, today the President released his budget 
request which projects a $1.8 trillion deficit this year and a $533 
billion deficit for 2013. Yet, the Congressional Budget Office ran a 
deficit projection using a baseline which assumed the policies in the 
President's budget request contends that the FY 2013 deficit will be a 
staggering $715 billion.
  President Obama's pledge of cutting the deficit in half is important, 
but it will still be at record levels. In this morning's Washington 
Post, Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee For a 
Responsible Federal Budget, said she would like ``To see them [the 
Obama Administration] go much further in terms of fiscal responsibility 
in actually closing that deficit gap.''
  More to the point, Brian Riedl, budget analyst for the Heritage 
Foundation, says, ``It is easy to cut the deficit in half after you've 
quadrupled it.''
  Today's Politico features an article titled, ``Arguments Lost in 
Blizzard of Billions,'' which contends--and I agree--that Congress is 
so desensitized to numbers that ``a billion here, a billion there, 
pretty soon you're talking about--well, pretty soon no one has a clue 
what you're talking about.''
  Have we forgotten that we have over $56 trillion in unfunded 
obligations through Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--already 
saddled on the back of future generations--$11 trillion of debt? Do 
elected officials know that Standard and Poor's Investment Service 
predicts the loss of America's triple-A bond rating as early as 2012?
  When Secretary of State Clinton was in Beijing last week, she asked 
the Chinese--who now holds the paper of about 1 of every 10 American 
dollars--to keep buying our debt. I never thought I would see the day 
when the United States was forced to hold a tin cup in China mortgaging 
the future for our children and our grandchildren to some of the worst 
human rights violators in the world.
  We are in a crisis today. Main Street is suffering. Americans 
everywhere understand our country is in serious trouble--we are 
sinking--and it is on this Congress' watch. The 111th Congress is doing 
nothing.
  Confidence. The definition of ``confidence,'' according to Webster's 
Dictionary, is ``faith or the belief that one will act in a right, 
proper, or effective way.'' ``Act'' being the key word.
  Americans are under the belief that elected officials will work 
together to solve the Nation's most pressing problem. But if Congress 
is paralyzed by partisan bickering, what happens to the word ``act''?
  Entitlement spending and the massive debt we're leaving to our 
children and our grandchildren are pressing issues of economic and 
moral--this is a moral issue. The Tenth Commandment says, ``Thou shalt 
not steal.'' Well, this generation is stealing from the next 
generation. Every day the canyon of debt widens and deepens, and yet 
elected leaders--many hiding behind the mantra of regular order--seem 
to think the problem will magically go away. The fact is, congressmen 
give speeches and say, ``I'm all for this. I'm concerned. But let's go 
through regular order.''
  When it goes through regular order and it goes through the Budget 
Committee, when it goes through regular order and it goes through the 
Ways and Means Committee, it is dead. This Ways and Means Committee 
this year will not act unless they're forced to act by changing the 
process.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, we have to act to get control of our debt for 
our children and our grandchildren.

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