[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 7488-7489]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              WHY ISN'T ANYONE TALKING ABOUT THE DEFICIT?

  (Ms. HANABUSA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute).
  Ms. HANABUSA. Mr. Speaker, the mantra for at least 4 years has been 
the Federal budget deficit, but for some reason, it is now rather 
quiet. The question we should be asking is: Why?
  Could it be because last week the CBO readjusted its projections and 
has determined that the government's annual deficit is shrinking faster 
than expected--actually shrinking? The deficit which topped 10 percent 
of the gross domestic product in 2009 and exceeded $1 trillion a year 
is now expected to

[[Page 7489]]

shrink to $642 billion this fiscal year. That's $200 billion lower than 
expected. The deficit is expected to be 2.1 percent of the GDP by 2015, 
a rate that is deemed manageable by the CBO. So why aren't we talking 
about this?
  Just so we're clear, the $200 billion is not due to the 
sequestration. Shouldn't we be saying something is going right? Could 
it just be the implementation of the Obama policies may be working? 
Imagine if we implemented it all.
  Mr. Speaker, let's talk about it so the people can clearly hear.

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