[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 50 (Tuesday, March 24, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H3785-H3786]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express grave concern 
regarding the budget that the Budget Committee is acting upon this week 
and which some have proposed be brought to the floor of this House next 
week.
  I would suggest that it is very much in need of dramatic changes and 
would ask that the leadership of this Congress take that budget back 
and start over again because a debt of the magnitude that this country 
is already facing, added to the projected deficit for next year alone, 
now up to $1.8 trillion, is a staggering sum of money, and it is not 
something that is sustainable.
  We have known this for a long time. In fact, one of the namesakes of 
the annual dinners that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
hold, the Jefferson-Jackson dinners that are held all across the 
country, he has been known throughout American history for his strong 
stand against piling on greater and greater public debt. In fact, late 
in his life he said, ``There does not exist an engine so corruptive of 
the government and so demoralizing of the Nation as a public debt. It 
will bring on us more ruin at home than all the enemies from abroad.'' 
And we are, in fact, seeing this statement made long ago coming to 
haunt us in very severe ways at this time in our history.
  You know, we had up until last year a $9 trillion national debt that 
had been accumulated over more than 200 years of our Nation's history. 
And yet the projection now is that in the next 10 years, according to 
this budget--and that is based upon optimistic projections I would say 
with regard to government spending--the liabilities the government 
already has for a number of different programs, but the projection 
already offered by the administration is that that debt will increase 
by one-and-a-half times in the next 10 years.
  That is staggering to consider that we could outstrip all of the 
spending that has taken place over all of that period of time in such a 
short period of time, and I want to show you exactly how that works 
with this chart.
  This chart shows the doubling of the debt held by the public in a 
very short period of time. Projections now are that it will be even 
greater than this. This one shows that it grows to $16 trillion. We now 
have a new projection that says $23 trillion will be the national debt 
in total.
  The public portion of the national debt, that portion of the debt 
that we owe to American citizens and other people around the world, 
will grow to $16 trillion from less than $6 trillion just last year. 
That is a stunning figure, but this doesn't even tell the whole story 
because what this shows is just the public portion of the debt.
  Every year, the Congress borrows from the Social Security trust fund, 
and other trust funds, additional funds, and the government simply puts 
an IOU in those trust funds, funds so important to our senior citizens 
and others who are counting on those funds to be there in the future, 
to make sure that Social Security and other programs are actuarially 
sound, and yet the money has been borrowed, such that the total amount 
of our national debt by 2019 will come to $23 trillion.
  We have in this budget that has been offered in this Congress too 
much spending, too much taxation and, what we're focusing on today, too 
much debt. Let me call the words of President Jefferson to mind again: 
To preserve the independence of the people, we must not let our rulers 
load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy 
and liberty or profusion and servitude--and that is

[[Page H3786]]

truly the crossroads that we have reached today.
  Thomas Jefferson recognized that 190-plus years ago and pointed out 
that with economy comes liberty and freedom. With as he called it 
profusion, or what we call today big government spending, comes 
servitude of the people to their government. That is not what our 
Founding Fathers intended when they created the United States 
Constitution which, in my opinion, is in need of one change that is 
vitally needed, and that is a balanced budget amendment to the United 
States Constitution.
  I will have more to say about this in the future, but I urge my 
colleagues to oppose this budget and support real fiscal reform, which 
would be to adopt a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

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