[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11008]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              DEBT CEILING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Broun) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Speaker, this debt ceiling is starting to 
feel like deja vu.
  If you think back to 1990, President George Herbert Walker Bush 
agreed to $2 in spending cuts for every dollar in tax hikes. He agreed 
to this with the congressional Democrats, but that's not what ended up 
happening. All of the Democrats' tax hikes went into effect, but the 
promised spending cuts never materialized. We cannot fall for this 
trick again, and that's the same trick that we see from the people on 
the other side, my Democratic colleagues and the President.
  Higher taxes do not lead to more government revenue. We have seen 
proof of this in years past. Instead of raising taxes, let's leave 
money in the hands of small businesses, the job creators, so that they 
can create jobs. More jobs means more revenue and less deficit.
  Higher taxes means more people out of work and higher debt. In fact, 
President Obama admitted in 2009 that ``the last thing you want to do 
in the middle of a recession is raise taxes.''
  And, in the past, liberals in Congress have adamantly spoken out in 
opposition to debt ceiling increases. Then-Senator Obama said in 2006 
that a debt limit increase was ``a sign of leadership failure.''
  I could not agree more. It's a time for lawmakers to stop talking out 
of both sides of their mouths and do what is best for the economy, for 
our Nation, and the American people.
  Over the last 10 years we have raised the debt ceiling 16 times. It 
hasn't worked, and now we are at the end of that road.
  We need to try something new so that we can get started actually 
paying down our enormous debt. We must get our country on an 
economically viable course and create jobs in the private sector. 
That's why I have introduced H.R. 2409, the Debt Ceiling Reduction Act, 
which would lower the debt ceiling to $13 trillion, and that would 
force politicians in Washington to make the cuts to our budget that our 
economy so desperately needs and start figuring out how to pay off this 
unsustainable debt that we have created.
  Madam Speaker, I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
will cosponsor and support this legislation. It's a great way to both 
create jobs and to create a stronger economy.

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