[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18229]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1410
     IT'S TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT WASHINGTON'S SPENDING ADDICTION

  (Ms. FOXX asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, the so-called supercommittee announced last 
week that it was unable to come up with a plan to reduce the deficit by 
$1.2 trillion over the course of 10 years. That is a sad commentary on 
Washington, DC's addiction to overspending. After all, $1.2 trillion is 
less than 1 year's worth of overspending at the going rate.
  It's time to get serious. Just consider the mess in Europe. The 
eurozone's bailout fund is struggling to keep debtor nations like 
Greece, Ireland, and Portugal afloat, while Italy also teeters on the 
brink of insolvency. Europe's sovereign debt crisis is not an abstract 
economics lesson; it is the painful reckoning after years of the debt-
financed government profligacy.
  What should unnerve us is that some of these nations being battered 
by the consequences of high debt level have debt-to-GDP ratios that are 
close to our own. If Congress doesn't get serious about reducing 
spending and ending the Federal debt addiction, we're going to find 
ourselves in the same boat as our friends in the eurozone.

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