[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5670]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        OUR NATION'S DEBT CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. DesJarlais) for 3 minutes.
  Mr. DesJARLAIS. Mr. Speaker, I find it shameful that Washington has 
run up trillion dollar deficits for the last 3 years and yet there are 
those that seek to portray Republicans' modest, commonsense spending 
cuts as extreme. It is time for government to tighten its belts and 
balance its budgets just like families do every day across Tennessee's 
Fourth Congressional District.
  I refuse to allow our Nation to continue borrowing money from China 
for reckless government spending and then send the bill to our children 
and grandchildren.
  Americans deserve the truth. The choices that we make now on spending 
are not easy, but they are necessary. We cannot continue to spend money 
that we do not have. My constituents did not send me to Washington to 
ignore problems nor offer excuses. They did send me here to solve the 
problems and not kick the can down the road further.
  Our Nation is not in debt because Americans are taxed too little. We 
are in debt because government spends too much. We must address our 
Nation's debt crisis and spending addiction, and we must do it now.

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