[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 16 (Wednesday, January 25, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H287]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         DEBT CEILING CONCERNS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Austin Scott) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise to talk a little 
bit about the national debt and accusations that have been made against 
my colleagues in the House Republican Conference.
  I have listened as a couple of my colleagues from the Democratic side 
have accused us of playing chicken and gambling, and have said they are 
glad that we are going to be educated on the impacts of a default on 
the debt. I will tell you, I agree with a lot of the consequences that 
have been outlined about the default.
  What I want my colleagues to recognize on the other side of the aisle 
is that 2 days before Christmas a bill passed this House, 4,126 pages, 
and spent $1.7 trillion dollars. That bill was negotiated among four 
people: Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Schumer, President Biden, and 
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
  When President Biden signed the bill on December 30, what I want my 
colleagues to know is that we had already hit the debt limit on 
December 30.
  I have the Daily Treasury Report dated December 30 of 2022. The 
national debt subject to the limit was $31,347 trillion. The statutory 
debt limit is $31,381 trillion. Now, technically, we were 99.89 percent 
of the way to the debt limit. For all practical purposes, if you spent 
99.89 percent on your credit card, you are there.
  The four people who negotiated it had to know that we were less than 
one-tenth of 1 percent away from hitting the debt limit the day that 
legislation was signed. All they had to do in that 4,000-page omnibus 
bill was write one sentence to change the debt limit to what it would 
have taken to fund their omnibus bill.
  One sentence would have changed the debt limit in this country, and 
we wouldn't be having the discussions we are having today about 
default--but they didn't do that.
  January 19 was 20 days after that bill was signed, and now they are 
accusing House Republicans of being fiscally demented and not paying 
attention, playing chicken, and gambling with America's future.
  The four people that negotiated that deal had four choices. They 
could have passed a continuing resolution with a debt limit included. 
They could have passed a continuing resolution without the debt limit. 
They could have passed an omnibus bill and included the debt limit. 
They could have passed an omnibus bill and not included the debt limit.
  There was only one of those choices that would have led to the 
current situation where everybody points the finger at House 
Republicans and says you are gambling with. The one choice that led to 
the current situation is an omnibus bill without the debt limit 
included.
  Guess what those four, with 160 years of political experience, chose? 
They chose the one that would lead to the current situation.
  They could have included the debt limit in the piece of legislation 
that was adopted and signed on December 30. They chose not to. You 
don't need to point the finger at Republicans and say we are gambling 
and playing chicken.
  The fact of the matter is, the four people that negotiated the 
omnibus bill knew exactly what they were doing. This crisis was 
intentionally created, and it is something that we are going to have to 
work together to get out of.
  We have $32 trillion in debt. In 2019, we had $21 trillion. We can't 
keep running at a $2 trillion deficit every year.

                          ____________________