[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11380]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        GETTING A HANDLE ON DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Carter) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CARTER. Six months ago, a small businessman was called into a 
financial lending institution and asked to come in and talk to the 
officer in charge. He went into that office and the officer in charge 
told him, You have been a customer of this organization for quite a few 
years and we have constantly been giving you a line of credit every 
summer to continue your operation for the next year.
  This year our examiners have noted for us and also through our board 
of directors we've examined your operation and your borrowing patterns. 
Here's what we've discovered: We've discovered that where you had a 
going facility and you were doing well and you were employing people 
and things were going well, we've started to see a trend in your 
business to where you are increasing your debt more and more and more. 
Not only were you spending our line of credit that this bank lent to 
you to continue your operations throughout the year, but outside of 
that line of credit, you were accumulating many, many, many credit 
cards. And now at this point in time, it is our understanding and the 
way we look at it is not only are you using our line of credit that we 
gave you but you also have maxed out every credit card you have got, 
and, quite honestly, we are amazed at the number of credit cards you 
actually have. We didn't really know anybody could have that many 
credit cards.
  So we're just going to warn you, if you don't change the direction of 
the way you're operating your business, we very clearly believe that 
your business is going to go bankrupt. But even more importantly to 
this institution, this lending institution, we're concerned about the 
fact that our institution is going to be placed in a very tenuous 
position on any loans that we make to you; therefore, our position 
right now is that when you come to us next August, we're not going to 
lend you the money for your line of credit.
  Yesterday, this same businessman walked into that same lending 
institution and said, My accountant and I have done the same analysis 
that you've done on the situation of our operation. We've looked at it, 
and we actually agree that we have gone in the wrong direction now for 
many, many years and we have spent more than we've made for many, many 
years. And we, quite frankly, got away from doing the needs of our 
company to doing the wants of our company.
  Therefore, we are seriously in debt. I want to start off by saying I 
recognize that. And when you gave us our wake-up call, we sat down and 
analyzed what we could do to show you that we are changing the 
direction of our business. And here's what we propose to you:

                              {time}  1130

  First, we propose to you that, this year, here are the reductions 
we're going to make on our credit cards, and here are the places where 
we're going to cut back on the way we spend. That's for this year.
  Now, we've also analyzed every section in the departments of our 
business, and we have determined that we're way over what we really 
need to function as a prosperous business, so we're going to offer to 
you that our business plan over the next 10 years is to put a ceiling 
on every department and every part of our business operation so that we 
will never rise above that ceiling; therefore, we will be continually 
reducing the level of our spending over the next 10 years.
  Then, finally, we are making a pledge to you of everything not 
encumbered in our business that we will balance our budget, that we 
will prepare a budget and balance that budget every year and that, if 
at any time it doesn't, then immediately you will call every note we 
have.
  This is a parable, but it's also the reality in the United States of 
America today for everybody but the Federal Government. That's why, 
today, the Republicans will offer that same plan of Cut, Cap, and 
Balance.

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