[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 69 (Wednesday, April 27, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2182-S2184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             National Debt

  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, about 6 years ago, I came to this 
floor and presented an idea: How do we get on top of our debt and 
deficit? Are we going to get on top of our debt and deficit?
  Interestingly enough, for each of us and our own families, we can all 
tell a story about a season in our life that we really hit hard times. 
I have had several where the money was really tight and our family was 
very attentive to what we were spending--very--those moments when we 
would literally make sure that every time we went to the grocery store, 
we only spent this much because we knew we had an electric bill coming 
in; we knew we had our rent coming due.
  My family has most definitely been there. My wife and I, when we were 
first married, we had a rule that we couldn't ever spend more than $25 
without the other person knowing it because our fear was when we were 
first married that one of us would spend $30 and the other would spend 
$35 that day and we would blow up our bank account because we were 
living that close to the edge and just getting by while I was at school 
and we were just getting started. A lot of families have been that way.
  You can tell how serious a family is about dealing with their debt by 
how seriously they take their expenses. There are some individuals that 
have massive debt that still keep running up their credit card. They 
keep buying more and more product. They still use their credit card and 
go get additional electronics and get extra stuff on it and max out 
this card and then I will max out another one, not with essentials, 
just with fun--not paying attention to the fact that someday that comes 
due.
  When I started presenting the idea of the ``Federal Fumbles,'' my 
whole concept was simple: Where is it the Federal Government is 
dropping the ball; that we are not paying attention to the areas we 
need to be able to pay attention to in our spending? It is a well-known 
fact that we have trillions in debt. In fact, as a nation, we have now 
crossed $30 trillion in total debt--$30 trillion. It is interesting 
that the conversation doesn't seem to be serious. We don't seem to be 
in a dialogue about how we are going to actually bring our debt down. 
We are still spending on other things and still saying, not we are 
limited in what we can do; we seem to be adding more to the mix. It is 
not necessarily on essential things; it just seems to be on things.
  The ``Federal Fumbles'' book that I released this week, put on our 
website, just details several different items. One is, where are we in 
our debt and how did we get here? But I also try to walk through some 
of our trust funds on this because I think it is important.
  Where are we on Medicare trust funds? By the way, we are 4 years away 
from insolvency on Medicare--4 years. Where are we on Social Security? 
We are 12 years away from insolvency in Social Security--12. Where are 
we on the highway trust fund? We are well past insolvency on the 
highway trust fund, and we have been accelerating our borrowing to try 
to cover more and more. In fact, that was done even recently.
  I laid out a set of ideas of how do you actually solve some of these 
things and how are we going to address it. But I also laid out some of 
my frustrations that said, at some point, this body is going to be 
serious about dealing with debt and deficit, but apparently we are not 
yet.

[[Page S2183]]

  So I laid out some areas and just got a chance to be to be able to 
talk through some of those in the book. And I encourage folks to be 
able to look at it and, quite frankly, everyone is welcome to disagree 
with me on it.
  For instance, we spent $2 billion--billion with a ``b.'' We spent $2 
billion this last year not building the border wall. The contracts had 
already been let out. The steel was already purchased. The steel, in 
fact, is lying on the ground in the desert still today. Everyone was 
already hired, and there were literally individuals on the ground ready 
to do installation because the contract was there because career 
professionals at the Department of Homeland Security had made 
recommendations on certain areas of our southern border that 
desperately needed fencing. Those career professionals had worked with 
private contractors and had put a contract in place to be able to put 
fencing in those areas. And they were underway until the Biden 
administration stepped in on day 1 and stopped it all, though the 
contracts had already been let out. We spent $2 billion not building 
border fencing--$2 billion.
  Now, I ask the simple question: What would it hurt to go ahead and 
finish those contracts out that career professionals had signed off on 
and that career security individuals from the Department of Homeland 
Security had said was desperately needed in those areas? What would it 
have hurt to finish those contracts out? Instead, we sent messaging 
that we are not going to build a fence and spend $2 billion not doing 
that.
  What did we do instead? Well, we started doing robot dogs along the 
border instead. I wish I was kidding. These robot dogs would instead be 
hired to be able to help our border folks and Border Patrol and CBP to 
be able to help identify and carry things. So instead of border 
fencing, it is robot dogs that are now being contracted to be able to 
put in there.
  What else did we actually deal with? Well, of the trillions of 
dollars of debt that we have, recently, we put $2.6 million into China 
to help pay for some of their health programs. Now, follow the irony of 
this. We actually borrow a trillion dollars from China to pay our 
bills. So we borrowed money from China to be able to then send money to 
China to help pay their medical expenses.
  Does anyone else think this is a bad idea; that if we were serious 
about dealing with debt and deficit, we would start going line by line 
through all of this and to be able to identify that maybe this is not a 
good idea; that if we have $30 trillion in debt, maybe we need to find 
some areas to cut back on. We could cut back on that or maybe we could 
cut back on the grant that was given out to write about Russian 
screenwriters. We actually paid someone to do research on Russian 
screenwriters to be able to release this project out so people could 
study Russian directors and screenwriters.
  Again, I am fine if anybody wants to be able to do that, but my 
concern is if we are going to do this, this should probably be a 
private project that we release out, not have a Federal Government 
project when we are dealing with $30 trillion in debt.
  But what else did we do with our additional money while we have extra 
spending and time on this? How about lobster pot removal? We spent half 
a million dollars in a special earmark to do lobster pot removal.
  Now, initially, this is actually listed in the bill as derelict 
lobster pots. Derelict lobster pots. That sounds really ominous, 
doesn't it? But my understanding is it is lobster traps that are just 
out there that someone abandoned at some point.
  I would tell you, for those of us in Oklahoma, if you told me there 
is a lobster trap and there may be a lobster in it and you could keep 
the trap and the lobster if you wanted to go get it, we would go get 
it. But, instead, we are paying half a million dollars in Federal 
dollars to go pick up derelict lobster pots.
  Now, again, I would say to you, in Oklahoma, when we have a derelict 
well in Oklahoma, an oil and gas well, our oil and gas companies all 
pool money together and put a little bit in to be able to go clean that 
site up. And, year by year, we are cleaning up abandoned well sites, 
because our companies actually kicked the money in to go clean up their 
own messes that are out there.
  I don't understand how the State didn't do this or a city didn't do 
this or the industry didn't take it on. Now, I do have some frustration 
because there was some money set aside for parks as well. I am a big 
fan of parks. My kids go to the park. We are glad to be able to go to 
the park. I went to the park a lot. But there was a project for 2.3 
million in Federal money to be able to renovate a pool, a swimming 
pool, in Rhode Island.
  Now, I am not opposed to swimming pools, and I am not opposed to 
Rhode Island having swimming pools; I am just trying to figure out with 
Federal dollars, why the Federal government is paying to fix a swimming 
pool in Rhode Island. Shouldn't this be the State of Rhode Island--if 
it is a State park, shouldn't it be the State or the community or the 
city to be able to take this on? Cities in my State, if they have 
problems with their pool, the city pays to be able to fix the pool or 
the community pays to be able to do that, rather than the Federal 
taxpayers pay to do that. We have the same issue, actually, with a ski 
jump, that there was a State park, that it needed a renovation for a 
ski jump, and so instead of the State actually paying for their State 
park, people in my State are paying for our State park, and we are 
paying to fix the ski jump in this State park as well.
  Why are we paying for both? Why don't the people of Oklahoma pay for 
our State parks and the people in other States pay for their State 
parks? Again, I have nothing in opposition to ski jumping, other than 
it seems like a particularly terrible thing for me to do, but if 
somebody wants to be able to do it and they want to pay for that, that 
is fine. Just, why should Oklahoma taxpayers do that?
  As we were digging through the different pieces that were actually 
done, I would tell you it was painful the moment when we ran across the 
monkey opera. We spent Federal tax dollars on something called a 
``monkey opera.''
  Now, I am not sure why we spent Federal tax dollars on a monkey 
opera. I am not sure what a monkey opera sounds like. But I would tell 
you, I think I have listened to a monkey opera on people's at-hold 
music before when I have called certain companies, that I think the 
hold music they have was actually monkey opera. But I have to ask the 
hard question: Is this national defense? Is this educating our 
children? Is this healthcare?
  With $30 trillion in debt, at some point, we as a Nation have to stop 
and say, ``OK, let's do what is essential and not what's not.''
  Two weeks ago, a staff member called me and said she was in line at 
the grocery store, and the woman in front of her with her kids pulled 
out all the stuff in her basket and put it on the scanner area and said 
to the lady that was going to be the cashier, ``Hey, tell me when it 
gets to $150 because I can't spend anymore. That is all I have.''
  And so the cashier kept ringing things up. She held things back that 
she thought were the nonessentials at the end because she knew, this is 
all I have, and though I would like to get more, I can't. It sent me 
two messages. One is, every family knows how to do this. Why we can't 
as a Federal government look at it and say, with $30 trillion, maybe 
the monkey opera is not one of our essentials, I don't know.
  But the second thing it reminded me of is, every family is dealing 
with the real effects of inflation right now. It is very real for them. 
They are saying to the cashier at the grocery store, ``Tell me when it 
gets to this dollar amount, because that is all I have.''
  When we continue to spend more and more and more as a Federal 
government, it drives inflation higher and higher. I am very aware 
there are a lot of folks in this room who are just trying to help. But 
we are causing real problems with inflation, with overspending as a 
nation. That has got to pull back, and we have got to get serious about 
what we are spending on, because this kind of stuff drives the American 
people crazy, when they are saying to the cashier, ``I could only do 
$150. Please tell me when it gets there, because everything else I 
can't do today.'' And we borrowed more money from China so we could do 
this.
  We put out the Federal fumble book every year for one reason: I want 
to remind everybody in this body that debt

[[Page S2184]]

is still a problem. This is still an issue, wasteful spending, whether 
it is in the billions or whether it is in the thousands, is wasteful 
spending. And at the end of the day, we need to understand, the 
American people are counting on us to make hard decisions, and there 
are lots and lots of hard decisions. But currently as a body, we are 
not even discussing $30 trillion in debt. So I bring it to us again: We 
have $30 trillion in debt. Let's start working on this.
  I yield the floor.