[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 20, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H197]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          A BACKROOM DEAL TO INCREASE THE NATION'S DEBT LIMIT

  (Mr. WOLF asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I saw the article in this month's Washington 
Post about the Obama administration's cutting a backroom deal with the 
Democrat leadership to create, by Executive order, a commission to deal 
with our Nation's excessive spending.
  I am opposed to creating this panel by Executive order, and the 
American people will be opposed. Congress should be voting to create 
this commission, and it should be requiring that it act on the panel's 
recommendations.
  What the President and the Democrat leadership have agreed to, which 
has only now come around to addressing the issue because they need 
political cover to increase the debt limit, is a fig leaf. This is the 
same group that has pushed our deficit to record levels and that has 
continued to write check after check from an account which already has 
a negative balance.
  The American people will be cut out of the process. It is a backroom 
deal; and under this deal, the recommendations will be voted on by a 
lame-duck Congress, filled with retiring and defeated Members. This is 
wrong. Any action should be taken by a newly elected Congress, not one 
on the way out the door. Creating this commission by Executive order is 
the wrong way to go. We have to get this right. Too much is at stake.

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