[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12183]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE DEBT CEILING

  (Ms. BASS of California asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Ms. BASS of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to 
the Republican debt ceiling plan that will be considered later this 
week.
  My Republican colleagues have brought a bill to the floor that would 
introduce statutory spending caps for the next 10 years with mandatory 
automatic cuts across the board to all programs if the cap is breached. 
Disguised as a solution, this cap would quickly become one of the most 
serious budgetary problems this country has ever faced. While a 
spending cap might sound responsible, in reality, caps don't balance 
budgets; caps trigger massive unsustainable cuts. We tried this in 
California. The Republican spending cap jeopardizes our ability to 
improve our schools, rebuild the Nation's crumbling infrastructure, and 
invest in R&D.
  A global spending cap is not a silver bullet for our budgetary woes. 
Far from being a budgetary cure-all, a drastic ceiling on spending 
would undermine our recovery when the economy gets better. So I urge my 
colleagues to abandon this hostage-taking on raising the debt ceiling 
and work with the President to lead us forward with a responsible debt 
reduction plan.
  Besides forcing significant cuts to important programs, a cap would 
make it nearly impossible to restore services cut over the recession as 
our economy recovers or step in to respond to current or future 
economic challenges. This is not the time to be talking about capping 
spending at unsustainable levels that can never be raised again.

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