[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 68 (Thursday, April 26, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H3581-H3582]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          PATH TO DEBT CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, in December we adopted one of the most 
important tax reform laws in our Nation's history. It is producing 
higher wages, better job opportunities, and greater economic expansion 
than we have seen in a decade. But having cut taxes, we assumed an 
urgent responsibility to restrain spending.
  Taxes and debt are two sides of the same coin. A debt is simply a 
future tax. Once we have spent a dollar, we have already decided to tax 
it, either now or in the future. It is the spending that is the 
problem. Three numbers--26, 29, and 46--tell the whole story. Over the 
last 10 years, population and inflation have increased a combined 26 
percent. Our revenues have more than kept pace, increasing 29 percent. 
The problem is that third number. Our spending has grown 46 percent.
  We are now approaching a trillion-dollar annual deficit with $21 
trillion of total debt. This not only crowds out capital that would 
otherwise be used for economic expansion; it also produces staggering 
interest costs on that debt, which today amount to $475 billion a year.
  Our total defense spending this year is roughly $675 billion. Every 1 
percent increase in interest rates adds roughly $200 billion to our 
annual interest costs. If capital markets believe we have no plan and 
no inclination to control our spending, they could soon begin demanding 
higher rates to compensate their added risk.
  That is a debt spiral. It leads to a debt crisis. Pension systems 
implode, basic services falter, the economy collapses, and the 
population flees. Puerto Rico's debt crisis has left its Government 
completely helpless to respond to last year's hurricanes.
  The instrument required to prevent this from happening is the Federal 
budget. It is supposed to set limits on discretionary and mandatory 
spending and to provide a streamlined process to adjust statutes to 
meet those levels. The deadline for Congress to pass such a budget was 
April 15. To date, the House Budget Committee has done precisely 
nothing to fulfill this statutory requirement and this fiscal 
imperative. Nothing.
  The Constitution gives to the House the power of the purse. A dollar 
is not spent by this government unless the House says it gets spent. 
Two months ago, having cut taxes, the House has approved a 20 percent 
increase in discretionary spending, placing us on a path that will 
inexorably lead to a sovereign debt crisis. And the House Budget 
Committee, over the objections of myself and others, has done nothing 
to produce a plan to get us off that path.

                              {time}  1030

  Fortunately, the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus in 
the Congress, has stepped forward to offer a comprehensive budget for 
fiscal year 2019. I chair the Budget and Spending Task Force of the 
RSC, and I want to thank the many Members and staff who provided 
countless hours to produce it.
  The RSC budget is, at present, the only credible and comprehensive 
plan in Congress to turn us back toward fiscal solvency before it is 
too late, getting us back to balance by 2026. It combines the fiscal 
reforms proposed by the members of the RSC over the last several 
sessions, along with innovations and service delivery proposed by the 
CBO, the GAO, the administration, and by think tanks like Heritage 
Foundation and Mercatus.
  It shows, program by program, how we can reform them in a manner that 
produces more effective service delivery at a much lower cost, save 
Medicare and Social Security from impending collapse, and fully fund 
our Nation's defense.
  Yes, it gores every sacred cow in the Federal bureaucracy, and we 
will hear howls of protest from the partisans of the status quo; but we 
are running out of time, and we are running out of options. Those same 
voices have placed us on a collision course with bankruptcy, and 
countries that bankrupt themselves aren't around very long.
  A sovereign debt crisis is coming to America, and at our current rate 
of spending and borrowing, it could be coming very soon. I implore the 
House

[[Page H3582]]

leadership to allow this budget to be brought at once to the floor and 
at least give the House the fleeting and perhaps final chance to avert 
the fiscal crisis that looms before us.
  Given the fact that there is no credible plan even being considered 
to avert this crisis, the RSC budget may represent the last best hope 
of restoring our government to solvency and assuring that we can 
continue to provide for the common defense and promote the general 
welfare for ourselves and our posterity.

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