[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 10877]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP

  (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PENCE. Well, negotiations over the Nation's debt ceiling have 
reached an impasse. After more than 2 years in office, trillions of 
dollars in borrowing and spending and bailouts and takeovers, the 
President now says the failure to reach an agreement is because of 
Republicans in the Congress, Republicans who were in the minority in 
the last Congress in fact; the President says because Republicans in 
Washington haven't ``fully realized that the philosophy of politics 
does not work in governing.'' He is telling us to eat our peas.
  Okay. Well, the President basically is saying that Congress owns the 
problem. But that's not what he said 5 years ago. Explaining his 
opposition to raising the debt ceiling, then-Senator Barack Obama said, 
``The fact we are here today raising America's debt limit is a sign of 
leadership failure.'' He said that doing so weakens us domestically. He 
said, ``Leadership means the buck stops here. America has a debt 
problem and a failure of leadership.'' He said Americans deserve 
better. Well, I say Senator Obama, you were right.
  When the U.S. Government can't pay its bills, it's not only a debt 
problem, but it is a failure of leadership at the Presidential level, 
just as you said. The truth is it's the President's problem. If 
President Obama wants to raise the debt ceiling, he should recognize 
it's his responsibility, it's his problem, and come to the Congress and 
ask us to step forward and help him solve that problem by cutting 
spending now, capping spending, and sending a balanced budget amendment 
to the States.

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