[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 160 (Wednesday, September 16, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S5620]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             National Debt

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, in the beginning of September, the 
Congressional Budget Office issued its latest budget outlook. The news 
wasn't good. CBO announced that next year our country's debt is 
projected to exceed the amount of our gross domestic product. In other 
words, the size of our debt will be greater than the size of our 
economy. That is a very bad position to be in.
  Countries with that kind of debt-to-GDP ratio face time-sensitive 
decisions if they want to avert an all-out economic crisis. Greece is 
just one recent example. We all know the kind of economic devastation 
and accompanying turmoil that Greece has experienced in recent years.
  Now, as the United States, we can probably hang on a little longer 
than most other countries before entering a full-blown debt crisis. It 
is helpful that our economy was surging before being waylaid by the 
onset of the coronavirus, but even we can't hang on forever. Sooner or 
later, if we don't address the size of our soaring debt, we are going 
to have a problem--a lot of problems, in fact.
  That is not something most of my colleagues across the aisle want to 
hear. They would like to spend as much as they want, whenever they 
want, on whatever new government program that they have come up with, 
and they imply that Republicans are miserly for not wanting to join 
them.
  Republicans, Democrats imply or sometimes say, just don't care about 
the ordinary Americans who would supposedly benefit from Democrats' 
spending. In fact, the opposite is true. In the face of the pandemic, 
Republicans have been willing to spend huge sums to help our fellow 
Americans weather this crisis, and Republicans are worried about our 
spending and our debt precisely because we care deeply about ordinary 
Americans. We know what the consequences of unchecked debt and spending 
can be, and we want to protect Americans from those consequences.
  To start with, the larger our debt grows, the more interest we are 
likely to have to pay--and we are already paying a lot. Right now, we 
are paying roughly $484 billion a year in interest on our debt. That is 
a substantial chunk of our yearly budget, and that is money that could 
otherwise be going to other priorities.
  And the problem has only snowballed. By 2029, the yearly interest on 
our debt is projected to reach $807 billion, according to one estimate. 
Now, that is going to eat up a lot--a lot--of money that could 
otherwise be spent on important investments: healthcare, veterans, 
infrastructure, defense, seniors, education. We would have a lot more 
money to devote to those priorities if we weren't paying hundreds of 
billions in interest each year on our debt.
  Then there are the economic consequences of a huge debt: The economy 
will struggle. Unemployment will grow. Businesses will create fewer 
jobs, if they create jobs at all. Wages and benefits will likely 
stagnate. The stock market will struggle.
  We have had to borrow a lot of money this year to meet the 
coronavirus crisis, and there is no doubt it is money we needed to 
borrow. That happens sometimes during a crisis. But we need to be very 
aware of the fact that we have driven up our deficit by $3.3 trillion 
just this fiscal year, further increasing our Nation's debt, and we 
need to be very careful about any additional borrowing and ensure we 
are borrowing only what is absolutely necessary.
  Republicans have caught a lot of flak from Democrats for not being 
willing to use the coronavirus as an excuse for unchecked government 
spending, including for noncoronavirus-related measures, but we have 
made a priority of scrutinizing additional spending because we don't 
want to get our country out of one economic crisis only to plunge it 
into another. Unfortunately, that is a lesson that is lost on many of 
my Democratic colleagues.
  We think the debt is bad now, and it is, but it is nothing like what 
our debt will look like if Democrats take Congress and the White House 
in November and start putting some of their bigger spending plans into 
effect--plans like Medicare for All, which would cost, as a 
conservative estimate, $32 trillion over 10 years; or the Green New 
Deal, Democrats' $93 trillion boondoggle.
  That is right, Madam President; you didn't mishear that. The Green 
New Deal is estimated to cost over $93 trillion over 10 years. To put 
that in perspective, the size of the entire Federal budget in 2019 was 
$4.4 trillion, or substantially less than the cost of 1 year of the 
Green New Deal.
  Now, you might think a pie-in-the-sky fantasy like the Green New Deal 
would have been abandoned by Democrats by now, but you would be wrong. 
More than a year after its introduction, it is apparently still going 
strong.
  Yesterday, I spoke on the floor about Democrats' threat to eliminate 
the legislative filibuster in the Senate, and that is the Senate rule 
that helps ensure that bills that come before the Senate require 
bipartisan cooperation.
  Shortly before I spoke, the Senator from Massachusetts, who 
introduced the Green New Deal resolution in the Senate, appeared on 
National Public Radio, where he was asked whether he thought there were 
any parts of the Green New Deal that could attract bipartisan support. 
The Senator's response: The whole thing needs to be enacted--and if 
Republicans don't allow that to happen, Democrats should change the 
Senate rules to eliminate the legislative filibuster.
  Apparently, Democrats aren't willing to even moderate their proposal. 
If the Senator from Massachusetts has his way, Democrats will shove the 
entire $93 trillion down the throats of the American people. I guess 
the American people will just have to survive the resulting debt 
crisis.
  When you ask about the pricetag for Democrats' socialist fantasies, 
Democrats will make noise about somehow paying for it. We will tax the 
rich, they say. The rich, they say, aren't paying their fair share. The 
problem, of course, is that increasing taxes on the rich isn't going to 
pay for these proposals.
  You could tax not only the rich but a good portion of middle class at 
rates nearly 100 percent and not come up anywhere close to getting $93 
trillion that would be necessary to pay for the Green New Deal.
  There is, in fact, no way to pay for these proposals. They will be 
financed by enormous additions to our national debt, and ordinary 
Americans will suffer the consequences: a shrinking economy, fewer 
jobs, lost jobs, lower wages, lack of opportunity, and much more.
  I hope we will take action on our debt before it is too late. One 
thing we have to consider is how to shore up and protect Social 
Security and Medicare, which are currently the main drivers of our 
national debt. Thanks to an aging Baby Boomer population, these 
programs are under a great deal of strain.
  My colleague from Utah, Senator Romney, recently introduced 
legislation, called the TRUST Act, to begin to address these endangered 
trust funds and to start to rein in our national debt. Bipartisan 
legislation like this would be a good start to preventing our country 
from facing an economic crisis in the coming decades.
  The Republican Senators sponsoring the legislation were joined by a 
handful of Democrats, which gives me hope that perhaps not all of my 
Democratic colleagues are determined to explode our national debt with 
their socialist fantasies.
  Unfortunately, too many Democrats--including the Democrats' Vice 
Presidential candidate--are open to bankrupting Americans with the 
Green New Deal and other plans. I hope they will not have the chance to 
implement their legislation because our economy and the American people 
might never recover from the consequences.
  I yield floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.