[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10515-10516]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              GET A BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Djou) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DJOU. Mr. Speaker and colleagues, I'm rising to speak very 
briefly on the fiscal situation facing our Nation today.
  Mr. Speaker and colleagues, I have the privilege of having won a 
special election in the State of Hawaii just a

[[Page 10516]]

couple weeks ago. I'm the junior-most Member, of course, right now in 
the U.S. House of Representatives. But I ran on a very simple platform: 
that we need to put our fiscal house in order, that our government is 
spending far too much money, and the mentality here in Congress today 
is that of spend, spend, and spend some more and if that doesn't fix 
the problem, throw more money at it. That is, I believe, a recipe for a 
fiscal disaster.
  I pledged to my constituents in the State of Hawaii that I will never 
ever forget that every single dollar the government spends comes from a 
family like yours. And right now, we're spending far too much of that 
money.
  Mr. Speaker and colleagues, I want to highlight what transpired 
yesterday in the Budget Committee in the hearing by Federal Reserve 
Chairman Ben Bernanke.
  In that hearing, during which I had the privilege of questioning the 
Federal Reserve chair, I thought he highlighted some very important 
measures that our Nation should take note of and this Congress must 
take note of.
  The Federal Reserve chairman pointed out that currently our budget 
deficit here in the U.S. Congress, in his words, is not sustainable. 
The Federal Reserve chairman clearly articulated that we need more 
fiscal restraint, and right now unless the Federal Government gets a 
control of its enormous budget deficit, major problems and consequences 
will occur to our national economy.
  The Federal Reserve chair pointed out to all of us right now that 
although a Federal budget deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars--
or in our case right now, trillions of dollars--might be okay in the 
short term if there is a fix, over the long term it will seriously 
damage our Nation's economic growth prospects.
  The Federal Reserve chair, when I asked him, pointed out that perhaps 
a budget deficit of about $300 billion could be sustained. We are, of 
course, looking today at a Federal budget deficit well in excess of $1 
trillion--with no end in sight. And what's even more troubling to me is 
the Federal Reserve chairman pointed out to this Congress that we have 
no fix in place.
  Mr. Speaker and colleagues, I want to reiterate and further urge all 
of the Members of this Congress as we go through this budgeting 
process--and it is a tragedy that this Congress has still yet to pass a 
budget--we have to exercise greater fiscal restraint, reduce the amount 
of enormous spending going on in this government. If we do not take 
care of our Nation's budget deficit, this budget deficit will take care 
of us.
  I remind all of the Members of this Chamber we do not have to look 
any further than what's happening in the nation of Greece right now and 
the fiscal and enormous financial problems going on in Europe. If our 
Nation and our Congress do not restrain the spending, reduce taxes, and 
limit government, we will be in the same mess.

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