[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7868-7869]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           THE NATIONAL DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, let me just read a quote 
here:
  ``Leadership means that the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is 
shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children 
and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of 
leadership. Americans deserve better.''
  Some things never change. That was Senator Barack Obama in 2006 
talking about the seriousness of the debt problem and the crisis that 
we find our Nation in. And today, we've spent over $1.5 trillion of 
money that we don't have.

[[Page 7869]]

  Republicans have put forward a budget, a proposal, a blueprint to 
begin to have the serious discussion that our country needs to have to 
make sure that the children and we are not left with an unrecoverable 
debt situation. Americans expect leadership. Even if you don't agree, 
Americans expect leadership from us, and what do they get? They get 
demonization. They get accusations. They get fear tactics.
  You know, our senior citizens in many cases sit at their homes and 
wonder what's going to happen. They find themselves concerned with 
their financial situation. And people on the other side of the aisle 
sometimes get together and figure out how they can take that fear and 
use it to a political advantage. That's terrible. Has it been done on 
both sides? It has.
  But today is the day that we get together, and we have to hit the 
reset button and say for the future of our country, we have got to have 
a real serious conversation about how to save this Nation for the 
generation to come after us. This country is the greatest country in 
the world, and we are not about to give that up. It will never happen. 
We are going to be the strongest country for the foreseeable future.
  There are a lot of folks talking ourselves down thinking that we are 
going to be usurped by another country. No, we are not. But we do have 
to come together, and we do have to have the serious conversations if 
we are going to maintain our place as the world's superpower and as a 
shining example to other countries all around the world.
  I fully believe in what this country is. I fully believe in what we 
represent, but the days of demonizing each other and not leading have 
got to end.
  It has been 756 days since Senate Democrats have passed a budget. The 
most basic job of a legislator is to pass a budget, and we haven't done 
it. Instead, we bicker. Instead, we argue. Instead, we run 30-second 
television ads and try to scare people so that we can win a reelection 
again. It's happened on both sides.
  But today, please, I implore my friends on the other side of the 
aisle, on both sides of the aisle, stop today and let's have adult 
conversations. America is too great, America is too important, and 
America is too excellent of an example for the rest of the world to be 
mired down and bickering and to be mired down in debt.

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