[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 18501]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           UNSUSTAINABLE DEBT

  (Mr. SMITH of New Jersey asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, it was Albert Einstein who said 
that ``the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.''
  That's great, Mr. Speaker, when compound interest is working for 
you--in building a nest egg for your children's college costs or for 
retirement. But when compound interest is working against you, it's 
catastrophic.
  It is absolutely devastating, especially for a Nation on the 
intermediate and long term, when that Nation recklessly spends 
taxpayers' money and causes huge, unsustainable deficits.
  As of June 30, the national debt was $11.5 trillion--over $37,000 per 
person. In June alone, the deficit rose by over $220 billion, a year's 
worth of deficits in 1 month! Now CBO says that the number, the total 
debt to the United States, will double in the next 10 years. It took 
180 years for us to get to that $11.5 trillion. Under President Obama's 
massive spending it will double in just 10 years. Nothing puts our 
economy at greater risk of implosion and job loss than unsustainable 
debt.

                          ____________________