[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7873-7874]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              DEBT CEILING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. Gardner) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. Speaker, creating jobs and growing the economy is 
the number one goal of the 112th Congress, everything we can do to 
create jobs and help this country move forward and get our economy back 
on track, but long-term economic growth and job creation is only 
possible if we control the uncontrolled debt and deficit situation that 
is driving this country into bankruptcy.
  Last week, I had the opportunity to visit with a number of voters in 
my district who were very concerned about the direction of our country, 
and I read the following quote to them: ``Leadership means that the 
buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the

[[Page 7874]]

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.''
  I didn't tell them who had said that. I just asked them if they 
agreed with that statement. Everybody clapped and cheered. I mentioned 
that this was said by then-Senator Barack Obama in 2006 when our debt 
was $8.4 trillion. We had an $8.4 trillion debt in 2006, and the 
President of the United States then said, ``We have a leadership 
failure. The buck stops here. America deserves better.''
  Well, if $8.4 trillion was a failure of leadership, what, Mr. 
President, is $14 trillion of debt?
  The debt isn't Republican. The debt isn't Democrat. It is both 
Republicans and Democrats that have put us in the position that we are 
in today, and this Congress, our obligation is to clean up the mess.

                              {time}  1100

  We're told, though, by the White House that we are to raise the debt 
ceiling--in effect to ``do as I say and not as I do,'' according to the 
President.
  It is irresponsible to take the steps of increasing the debt ceiling 
without finding solutions to our spending problems that put us here in 
the first place. I continue, along with my colleagues, to look for 
those solutions.
  We've passed a budget to cut spending and to get our deficit under 
control. Speaker Boehner is negotiating in good faith. But what do we 
hear from our colleagues in the Senate who have failed to pass a budget 
for 756 days? They have failed to pass a budget for 756 days. ``There's 
no need to have a Democratic budget,'' Senator Reid said.
  The President talks about caps but no real cuts.
  The debt ceiling is exactly that. It is a ceiling. It is not an 
arbitrary number that should simply be moved whenever it's easy to do 
so. The debt ceiling has been raised 10 times in the past 10 years. 
That's too much for something that was intended to be an actual check 
on government spending. If the debt is to be raised again, this country 
needs and deserves an honest effort to control spending and make sure 
that we are not in the same position in the future.
  The past Congress spent a lot of time dealing with credit card reform 
to help American consumers. Well, perhaps it's time that we treat the 
Federal Government itself to a little bit of credit card reform to make 
sure that the Federal credit card doesn't continue to increase over and 
over without an end.
  Ladies and gentlemen, I am concerned that the future job growth in 
this country, unless we reel in our Nation's debt, unless we address 
the deficit, is DOA--debt on arrival.
  America deserves better, Mr. President, it certainly does, and we are 
here to work with you to make sure that it gets better policies, a 
better future, and that we protect America from future economic 
catastrophe.

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