[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 56 (Wednesday, March 30, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H3975-H3976]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KELLER. Madam Speaker, this morning, I wish to address the 
American people and thank them for their hard work and their 
outstanding effort that funds our government and our Active Duty 
military personnel and veterans who have kept us safe, our law 
enforcement, our first responders, and all those who go to work every 
day making sure we are safe in our communities, safe in our Nation, and 
safe around the world.
  I also want to thank all the people that go to work every day to earn 
a living and support their families. And, yes, those are the people, 
all of them, that provide the revenue by which America can operate, 
something I think President Biden has forgotten.
  He has been in Washington, D.C., for half a century, and he proposed 
a budget earlier this week that spends $73 trillion over the next 10 
years and increases our national debt by 50 percent by the year 2032. 
Under that budget, the debt will be $45 trillion.

[[Page H3976]]

  And to say what the President said, a budget will show you your 
values. Well, evidently, he doesn't value our next generation.
  We all want our children to do better than we did and have it better 
than we did. How can they do that when he proposes to saddle them with 
so much debt?
  When you look at the national debt that we have, it is held by the 
public, it is held by foreign governments, and some of it is called 
intragovernmental debt, which means it is debt that is held by other 
government agencies.
  The Social Security Administration holds about 13 percent of our debt 
currently. I think this budget puts our seniors at risk and their 
ability to live a good life in retirement on a program which they 
funded for so many years from their paychecks.
  So, we look at the budget. I have read through it. All these items 
should be a red flag for anybody that wants to support this.
  It is not supporting America's values. It is not supporting our next 
generation. It is not helping our seniors. It is helping priorities 
laid forth by a man who has been in Washington, D.C., for 50 years.
  Evidently, he has gotten used to spending more than what the revenue 
brings in in our country.
  I remember President Reagan. This is, I believe, the 41st anniversary 
of the assassination attempt. I think President Reagan, when someone 
would say, He is spending like a drunken sailor. Then the President 
would say, Well, at least the sailor is spending his own money.
  We are entrusted with the money that the government takes from the 
citizens of the United States. We need to use it responsibly. We need 
to invest it in their priorities and not in the priorities of the 
people inside the beltway.
  I think he is too far out of touch, and quite frankly, there are a 
lot of things that we can't afford.
  What we should be looking at is protecting life. We should be looking 
at being responsible so that our kids are not saddled with so much debt 
and that our seniors can retire and count on a program they funded 
their entire lives.
  We have already seen the real cost of President Biden's tax-and-spend 
policies at the pump, in the grocery store, on the farm, and on Main 
Street America.
  It is time we stopped leaving a financial disaster for the next 
generation and put together a budget that meets the needs of the 
American people, not the needs of President Biden and Speaker Pelosi.

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