[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 25, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H3418-H3419]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   WASHINGTON HAS A SPENDING PROBLEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Dold) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DOLD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about a very serious 
problem, a problem that all Americans face and one that is not new here 
in Washington.
  I would like to read a quote that some of my colleagues have also 
used during this morning's debate, and if I may, let me just quote it 
once again:
  ``Leadership means that the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is 
shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children 
and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of 
leadership.''

                              {time}  1050

  That was said by Senator Barack Obama back in 2006, and I frankly 
agree.
  Just to put it in perspective, back in 2006, we were running a 
deficit. We had an administration that was running a deficit of about 
$400 billion, just highlighting the point that this spending problem 
that we have here in Washington is on both sides of the aisle. This 
doesn't rest with one political party or another. It just outlines the 
problem that Washington has a spending problem.
  The debt that we have today, we're up against our debt ceiling. It's 
about $14 trillion. The real debt, however, is much greater than that. 
It's closer to $100 trillion. The deficit that we deal with--it was at 
about $400 billion back in 2006. Today, it's about $1.5 trillion.
  Now, what does that mean? My daughter, who is 9, she knows what 1.5 
is. She says it's a little bit more than one and not quite two. But 
$1.5 trillion

[[Page H3419]]

works out to be about $3.4 million a minute. To put that in better 
perspective, it's $58,000 a second. We can't even say it fast enough. 
This is a problem.
  How do we get out of this problem? We have to map out a course. It's 
a budget. The Republicans passed a budget. The House passed a budget 
outlining a way for us to be able to cut back over $6 trillion over the 
next decade. I would argue that American families and households all 
across the land operate on a budget. Businesses do the same. Yet we 
happen to not be able to do that here in Washington.
  The United States Senate has not picked up or passed a budget in over 
750 days. The American family wouldn't operate like that. I know as a 
small business owner I couldn't keep my doors open if I didn't have a 
budget to outline where our priorities were going to be. It is a 
blueprint. It's not a final standing bill or thing that's going to say 
exactly how we're going to spend it, but it is a blueprint going 
forward so that we can get those in the Senate and elsewhere to be able 
to come together so that we can map out how we are going to get out of 
this mess. Because I do agree with the President when he says that the 
choices that we're making today, the bad choices of today are going to 
be placed on the backs of our children and grandchildren. For me, 
that's unacceptable.
  I decided to run for Congress largely because the amount of money 
that we were spending in Washington was going to be unconscionable for 
me to pass along to my children. I have a 9-year-old, a 7-year-old, and 
a 4-year-old. By the time they're my age, we are going to have to pay 
exactly double in taxes just to service the government. We pay 42 cents 
of every single dollar we have just to service our debt.
  The administration now is asking us to raise the debt ceiling. This 
is an important issue. But I'm here to tell you that we need to have 
some leadership. Leadership is critical at this point in time.
  What is the plan? I don't want to talk about bickering. I want to 
make sure that colleagues on both sides of the aisle come to the table. 
We know that there are negotiations going on right now, but I still 
would like to have a plan articulated to the American public. What is 
the plan? Because simply raising the debt ceiling without a plan on how 
we're going to pay down this debt is like--well, it's like sitting 
around the kitchen table and not worrying about the credit card debt of 
an irresponsible teenager. You wouldn't do that at home. We wouldn't do 
that in business. You should expect that your government does the same.
  Now, when we look at this debt crisis that we have, as a small 
business owner, I look at it somewhat like a business. I look at it 
that we have just purchased a business, and we think it's the greatest 
business in the world with the United States of America. That business 
has some debt, and we're obligated to pay that debt. We just have to 
figure out how it is that we are going to restructure that business so 
that we can pay down that debt and make it a strong, viable business 
going forward. That's what we have to do. To simply raise the debt 
ceiling and not have to restructure would be a violation of everything 
that we hold dear.
  With that, I call on leadership, leadership here in Washington from 
those on both sides of the aisle, to come together to solve the 
problems of our time and put our country first.

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