[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 1166]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              FEDERAL DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Speaker, tonight, in this House Chamber, President 
Obama will give his State of the Union address to a joint session of 
Congress.
  Article ll, Section 3 of the Constitution requires that the 
President, whoever it may be, shall, from time to time, give to 
Congress information on the State of the Union. George Washington, the 
first President, addressed the joint session of Congress, but Thomas 
Jefferson and each succeeding President up until 1913 presented a 
written statement of the State of the Union to the House and Senate. So 
from 1801 until 1913, Presidents submitted a written State of the 
Union, and on April 8, 1913, Woodrow Wilson, like George Washington, 
addressed a joint session of Congress, and that has been the manner of 
our State of the Union by every President since, with the exception of 
Herbert Hoover.
  Today, I am asking for another little change in the State of the 
Union. I think that we should consider a requirement that the 
President, on a day that coincides with the State of the Union, also 
have the Federal Government make a formal declaration of national debt.
  My purpose in calling for the declaration is twofold: First, while 
information about the debt can be found, it is spread throughout a vast 
array of budget submissions, trustee reports, and other documents that 
are nearly impossible to navigate or to understand when trying to 
determine the total national debt and unfunded liabilities our Nation 
must pay now and in the future. And then the second reason, of course, 
is to elevate the issue to remind the American public the significant 
dangers of large government debt.
  As of today, our Nation's Federal debt exceeds our Nation's gross 
domestic product. What does that mean? Gross domestic product is used 
to determine the monetary value of all the finished goods and services 
produced in America annually, and it includes all of the private and 
public consumption, all of the government outlays, all the investments 
and all the exports, less the imports.
  Our debt is increasing so quickly that it really is difficult to give 
an exact figure of our national debt. Suffice it to say that it will, 
in the very near future, exceed $17 trillion. When I looked at the so-
called ``clock'' on my way over here, it was approaching $16.6 
trillion. Now, if you stacked $16 trillion one-dollar bills one on top 
of the other, it would extend more than 1 million miles, which would 
reach to the Moon and back twice.
  Now, former Speaker Pelosi said a few days ago that we do not have a 
spending problem. Now, I do not believe that most Americans would agree 
with that statement. Families throughout America must live within their 
means or suffer the consequences, and our government must live within 
its means or suffer the consequences. Many people say there are no real 
consequences, but all of us have seen the loss of jobs, the violence, 
the lack of economic growth in countries like Greece and Spain and 
other parts of the European Union.
  President Obama took office on January 20, 2009, and the Nation's 
total debt on that day was $10.6 trillion. Today, it is over $16.5 
trillion. The President has drastically increased this country's debt 
in a mere 4-year span; in fact, it has increased by over 45 percent. 
However, it should be pointed out that he and he alone is not 
responsible for all this dramatic increase in debt. Every person that 
has served in the U.S. Congress in the recent past or today, House 
Members and Senate Members, are also responsible for the spending that 
we have approved. Also, those people who serve in the executive branch 
of government are also responsible.
  Just to give you a few examples, 9 or 10 months ago, the Department 
of Energy built about 12 new buildings over here on The Mall, across 
from the Jefferson Memorial, for a solar exhibit. It stayed there for 
about 10 months, and then it was torn down. No one really knows how 
much the debt cost.
  EPA, each year, gives grants to other countries, including China, to 
help them with their environmental problems at a time when we have to 
borrow money from China to meet our obligations. And then, as Mr. Jones 
mentioned earlier, in Afghanistan, we're spending $28 million a day.
  So I think it would be beneficial to the American people to prepare 
an annual declaration of the national debt to be made available to the 
Congress and the public. This would show the American people how much 
we owed last year, how much we owe this year, and what the projected 
debt is for the future.

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