[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11647-11650]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         AMERICA'S DEBT BURDEN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bridenstine). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the 
gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann) for 30 minutes.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the recognition, and I 
want to thank the Founders and the American people for the privilege of 
being able to serve in the United States Congress and also for the form 
of government that they gave to us.
  We've just heard a wonderful speech given on why it matters, why it's 
so important that we stand up for this concept that was given to all of 
us by our Founders, because this Nation is different from all other 
nations for a reason and that's why we're so proud of it. And we need 
to say that once in a while, why it does matter.
  There are issues before us now that our Nation is looking at, and it 
seems like life goes on and we aren't shocked. Yet here in Washington, 
D.C., we end up being shocked over and over again because most of us 
come here very normal people, a part of different various levels of the 
fabric of society. We bring our cumulated experiences here and we 
deliberate, trying to make the best decisions that we possibly can.
  Why? So that our country can be better than it was before. Because 
the one thing that we know looking forward, we want to make sure what 
we have now is enhanced not just for ourselves, but for the next 
generation. There's a reason why we've put so much time into our 
children, into our nephews and nieces, into our grandchildren--because 
we know that they're going to carry the baton. We get our moment in the 
sun for a certain period of our life and then we hand the baton on to 
the next generation. That's also a part of why it matters.
  Today, I was in the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Speaker. When I 
was in the Financial Services Committee, we were honored. We had before 
our committee the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Ben Bernanke. He 
has served faithfully for nearly 10 years. And under his leadership at 
the Federal Reserve, we've seen extraordinary changes in our financial 
system. Never before had we seen something quite like the Federal 
Reserve opening the Fed's discount window to private investment banks. 
We saw the Federal Reserve giving subsidized access to companies that 
we had never seen before. We've seen what the results of that have been 
within our economy.
  Many people call this a jobless recovery. Well, a jobless recovery is 
no recovery at all; because if you don't have a job, if you don't have 
a good-paying job, if you don't have increased benefits, you've got 
trouble. You've got trouble because I believe it's all about Americans 
first, about American wages first, about American jobs first, and about 
North America benefits first.
  I made a note, Mr. Speaker, when I was in committee today. I noted 
that the debt clock was running. It was on a TV in the Financial 
Services room. The number 17 was up there, and 17 is $17 trillion, 
which is a lot of money. When I came into Congress, Mr. Speaker, we 
were $8.67 trillion in debt, and we were all looking around wondering 
how in the world will we ever pay back $8.67 trillion in debt. That was 
January of 2007.
  We're now in 2013. So something over 6 years later, we have nearly 
doubled the national debt. That's the baton that we're handing to the 
next generation. It isn't a lightweight titanium baton. This is a baton 
that's made out of one of the heaviest substances on Earth.
  What does that mean? That means if you're a runner in a marathon or a 
runner in a race, you'd much prefer to have a lightweight titanium 
baton that you're carrying as opposed to a very heavy, weighted-down 
burden that you're trying to run with. Well, that would be a pleasure 
compared to what we're handing off to the next generation in terms of 
debt burden.
  This is what I found today, Mr. Speaker, during the Financial 
Services Committee hearing. We went for approximately 3 hours during 
the hearing, and I noted that the debt clock was at $17 trillion, so 
many billion. But it was at about $195 million. I watched that debt 
clock throughout the time that Mr. Bernanke sat at the desk. After 
about 3 hours, we had accumulated, in this country, an additional $400 
million in debt.

                              {time}  2115

  I waited patiently because I had a question that I wanted to ask 
Chairman Bernanke. And I watched the

[[Page 11648]]

numbers go up, and I watched the numbers go up, and I turned to one of 
my colleagues on my left, Mr. McHenry, who serves very honorably from 
the State of North Carolina. And I said, Take a look, Mr. McHenry. The 
debt has increased over $50 million just since we got started.
  He said, Are you kidding?
  I said, No, it really has. Take a look at the clock.
  And I looked, pretty soon it was $75 million. Then it was over $100 
million. And it grew and it grew until in 3 hours time, we added $400 
million to the national debt.
  Well, this is the question, Mr. Speaker, that I wanted to ask the 
Federal Reserve chairman. The number at the top that I've written down 
is $16,699,421,095,673.60. What is this? It's the debt limit. Now, why 
do I put this number up, $16 trillion. I put that up because something 
very weird happened in the United States Government.
  On July 12 on the Treasury Department's daily debt sheet, they put 
this up on the Internet, on that daily debt sheet they recorded 
$16,699,396,000,000.00, exactly to the penny. That number stayed the 
same for 56 days straight. Now this is kind of odd because if in 3 
hours time you can accumulate $400 million in additional debt because 
Washington, D.C., and this Congress and this President just can't seem 
to figure out how to stop spending more money than they take in, if we 
accumulate that much in 3 hours, how could it possibly be--and I asked 
the Federal Reserve chair this question today in Financial Services--
how can it possibly be that for 56 days the spending seemingly stood 
still, and not one additional penny was added to the national debt? How 
could that possibly be? How could it possibly be that magically by some 
freak coincidence the national debt stayed at the same exact dollar 
amount, oh, just $25 billion or so below the national debt limit. How 
could that be?
  Well, even though he's been the Federal Reserve chair for 10 years, 
he had no idea how that could happen. In fact, he didn't even know that 
it had happened. He didn't know for 56 days in a row there wasn't one 
single change in the debt limit even though in a 3-hour period of time 
we add over $400 million in new debt. How could that be?
  Well, part of the reason that he speculated is perhaps the Treasury 
used what they call their extraordinary means to be able to deal with 
the debt ceiling. You see, Mr. Speaker, what happened is we shattered a 
ceiling all right. We shattered a glass ceiling. We broke through our 
debt limit, and we broke through last May 17. But you see, this 
government wanted to wink and they wanted to nod, and they wanted to 
play games with the American people. And so for 56 days, they acted 
like we weren't spending more money than what we took in.
  I know if my children did that to me, that would be called a lie in 
our house. That is not acceptable to my husband and I. You don't lie to 
us. One thing that the Federal Government should never do to the people 
who pay the bills in this country is lie to them. And it seems to me 
that that's what this number is. For 56 days, they're pretending that 
we aren't adding any debt when of course we added debt because on 
today's debt clock, we're over $17 trillion.
  Why does this matter? Why is this so important? Because this body is 
about to engage a policy that will structurally change this country 
forever. And, Mr. Speaker, it's dealing with the issue of granting 
perpetual amnesty to tens of millions of illegal aliens. Why does this 
matter? It matters on so many different levels because, as I've shown 
in this chart, we're broke. We're broke because this is top number, the 
debt limit, this means that we owe this money. We don't have it sitting 
in a vault somewhere. As a matter of fact, if you go to the U.S. 
Treasury and you open it up, you don't open it up and find stacks of 
$100 bills. Moths and feathers fly out. There's nothing in there if you 
go to the vault. There's nothing in there; that's the problem. And 
we're making the problem worse and worse and worse.
  And at the worst possible time, Mr. Speaker, now the United States 
Congress is considering adding trillions of dollars more. And the 
current estimate by the Heritage Foundation is that we would be adding 
$6 trillion more because you see, Mr. Speaker, amnesty is terribly 
expensive. It costs a fortune because the estimate is that the average 
illegal alien that comes into the United States is approximately 34 
years of age. They come in with less than a 10th-grade education. And 
by the time they are 34 years of age, they usually aren't going back to 
school to get a high school diploma, much less a college degree. And so 
what we have found statistically is that the average illegal alien who 
comes in does pay taxes. They pay somewhere in the neighborhood of 
$10,000 a year in taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes, various user fees 
they'll pay. But the other estimate is they pull out of the U.S. 
Treasury over $30,000 a year in public subsidies and benefits. This is 
extremely expensive.
  That means for each person who comes in, we're looking on average at 
a cost of over $20,000 per person per year. So rather than adding to 
our society in the form of adding to our Treasury, we're drawing down 
from the Treasury. We're going backwards faster than even this debt 
clock is showing us.
  Well, what's the answer? I'll tell you what I'm hearing from home, 
Mr. Speaker. People are saying, Michele, can you tell me why in the 
world we are not actually securing our border?
  I say, You know, you're asking a very good question. Ronald Reagan 
promised us back in the mid-1980s when he said I have a one time deal 
for you: We will give amnesty to 1 million people that are in this 
country.
  Sounds like a lot of people, 1 million people. That 1 million people 
turned into 3.6 million people. Why? Because when people heard that 
there was going to be a great gift that was going to be given, more 
people wanted in on that gift. And so more people came across the 
border, and 3.6 million people were granted amnesty.
  And we were told the border would be secured. And 27 years later, 
we're still waiting to have that border secured. A promise was given, 
but a promise wasn't kept.
  And, Mr. Speaker, we went even further than that. In this very 
Chamber in the House of Representatives, we passed another bill dealing 
with border security because people said, What's going on? It isn't 1 
million people now in this country that are illegal, now it could be 5 
million, it could be 10 million. So back in 2006, this body decided in 
its wisdom it would pass a bill to actually secure the border to the 
point where we would even build a fence. So this body passed a bill. It 
was passed in the Senate. It went to President Bush's desk. It was 
signed into law, and this body agreed, we will build a fence on our 
southern border. And what's more than that, something that Congress 
doesn't often do, it paid for the fence. It actually appropriated the 
money. We actually gave the money to build the fence, the design, the 
whole works. We were going to get her done.
  Here we are, Mr. Speaker, 27 years after the promise made by Ronald 
Reagan, no fence. Seven years after the bill passed the House of 
Representatives and was paid for, no fence.
  My question, Mr. Speaker, where's the fence? If we don't have a fence 
7 years after we passed a law, where's the money? I think the American 
people have the right to ask, Give me my fence or give me my money 
back. What's going on? We need to get some answers. You see, that's why 
when we have this phony bill that came out of the United States Senate 
that said legalization first for illegal aliens, border security 
probably never, the American people looked at that bill and they said, 
Are you kidding me?
  You see, Mr. Speaker, the American people are pretty smart. They're 
not going to be taken for a ride a third time. It's the old saying: 
fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
  The American people are saying no dice; we're not going to have 
anything to do with this this time because the times have changed. You 
see, the economy has soured since 1987. The economy has soured since 
2006. We have massive unemployment like we have

[[Page 11649]]

not seen for decades. And in the midst of this unemployment, Mr. 
Speaker, we have 22 million Americans today that are looking for a 
full-time job, 22 million Americans. And we're going to legalize by 
granting amnesty to tens of millions of new illegal aliens who would 
come into this country and compete for jobs that 22 million Americans 
citizens would love to have? This doesn't make any sense.
  You see, the United States Chamber of Commerce came out with a brand 
new survey. They went to the number one job creators of this country, 
who are small businesses. And small businesses said, three out of four 
of them, as a matter of fact, said that ObamaCare is causing them to 
fire their full-time workers. ObamaCare is causing them to reduce the 
number of hours that their full-time workers have, and they're actually 
looking also at only hiring part-time workers.
  In fact, this isn't just big business or just small business. A 
letter came out from three unions that was sent to Speaker Pelosi, and 
also Majority Leader Harry Reid in the Senate, and it said this. It was 
from James Hoffa, who signed one of the letters from the Teamsters 
union.
  He said, Hey, Mr. President--and I'm paraphrasing--we were with you. 
As a matter of fact, we put boots on the ground for you, Mr. President. 
We got you reelected in this last election, Mr. President. We went out 
and said your bill was a good bill, Mr. President. You told us that if 
we liked our health care, we could keep it, Mr. President. And they're 
saying that's not what's happening. Because we fought for the backbone 
of the middle class, which is a 40-hour work week. And now--I 
paraphrase in this letter--Mr. Hoffa said that now we are looking at a 
new normal. And the new normal for the American workforce is a 30-hour 
work week. Thirty hours.
  So now you have the American people who would have to support their 
families, pay their mortgage, buy their groceries, pay for their car, 
on a 30-hour work week.
  And guess what, Mr. Speaker? That would be without health care. And 
so there's steam coming out of the ears of these unions. They're so 
angry because they're saying all that the unions fought for, to have a 
decent wage and to have decent benefit packages for the American 
people, they're seeing it go out the window. And at the same time, 
they're being expected to fall in line with the President's agenda and 
go along with amnesty for tens of millions of illegal aliens who are 
going to be fighting for those 30 hour a week jobs? Are we out of our 
mind?
  I go back to the beginning of what I started saying, Mr. Speaker, and 
it's this: we are looking at handing the baton to the next generation. 
And what is it we're leaving them? What is it that we're giving them? 
Are we giving them more jobs? It doesn't look like it. Job rates are 
falling. Labor participation rates are falling.
  Are we giving them higher wages? I don't think so because when 
President Obama took office in 2008, the average household income was 
$55,000 a year. And then a story came out this last year that the 
average household income has dropped from $55,000 to $50,000 a year. A 
study came out this April, a Harvard study. It said that a loss in the 
average household income can be attributed to illegal aliens in the 
United States in the amount of $1,300 a year. Now that might not seem 
like a lot of money to the big elites in this country who think it 
would be great to have amnesty for illegal aliens, but it sure as heck 
means a lot, $1,300 a year, to someone who's making it on $50,000 a 
year for their annual household income. I'm here to tell you, Mr. 
Speaker, there's a lot of people who would love to make $50,000 a year 
for their annual household income, and they can't get anywhere near 
that.
  And so why in the world, I ask you, would we want to disadvantage a 
woman who is a Hispanic who works in this country. Maybe she is doing 
her best working as a waitress, maybe she's working in an office, maybe 
she's working cleaning hotel rooms to try and help her family out.

                              {time}  2130

  Why in the world would we disadvantage her by bringing in more people 
to compete for her job and to compete for her benefit package?
  Why in the world would we disadvantage African American youth in the 
inner city who have an unbelievable unemployment rate, who, in the last 
few summers, they've gone as high as 46 percent unemployment. My heart 
breaks for African American kids in inner cities who haven't been able 
to get jobs.
  And we're thinking that we need to trip over ourselves and help 
President Obama achieve his number one political goal in his second 
term?
  We're barely 6 months into President Obama's second term, and, why, I 
can't begin to understand, are we tripping over ourselves to make sure 
that we have even more competition for the low-skilled workers who are 
having trouble even finding jobs and even finding wage and benefit 
packages.
  We can do so much better than that, Mr. Speaker. I know we can. 
That's why we've got to focus on border security, because border 
security is what the American people are asking of us because it's 
America first, American jobs first, American wages first, and American 
benefits first. Benefits are expensive, and we need them.
  I also would like to talk for just a moment about other people in 
this economy that are looking to us for a little help and a little 
relief right now, and that's senior citizens, because senior citizens 
tend to live on a fixed income, and they're nervous. They're nervous 
that their money isn't going to be worth what it was; and they should 
be, because, you see, when, as I said, this is the fiction that we were 
all told, that at $16 trillion, which is our debt, and of course it 
isn't. It's well over $17 trillion now.
  When the Federal Government continues to spend money that it doesn't 
have, and so it quite literally just makes it up, let's face it. The 
Federal Reserve chair, Ben Bernanke, was asked in committee today, in 
Financial Services, Mr. Bernanke, does the Federal Reserve, when it 
borrows money, does it print money? Is that what it's doing?
  And his answer was, well, not literally. But the point being, yes, 
they make it up. They make it up in the form of a computer with digits 
in it. And so somebody, every morning, gets out the magic fairy fingers 
and writes on the magic fairy keys, and the Treasury Department puts a 
request to the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department says to the 
Federal Reserve, in essence, say, Federal Reserve, we're about, oh, 
maybe $4 billion short today. Do you think you could loan us some 
money?
  And the Federal Reserve says, sure, we'll be happy to. So they type 
on their keys. Here's $4 billion. And in exchange, the Treasury 
Department sends over an email that says IOU $4 billion. Everybody's 
happy. So one hand reaches into this pocket and hands money to this 
pocket.
  The only problem is, Mr. Speaker, there's no money that ever gets 
exchanged. It's just a conversation, a made-up conversation.
  How does that impact a senior citizen, Mr. Speaker, who's at home 
listening right now, who has, let's say, $30,000 sitting in a bank? And 
they're hoping that that $30,000 can still buy them a year from now 
$30,000 worth of goods.
  Well, when you keep talking to each other, the Federal Reserve to the 
Treasury, and you're just making up money, all that does is lower the 
value of what a senior citizen has in the bank. So rather than $30,000 
in the bank, at the end of the year, maybe that's worth $29,500. Maybe 
that's worth $29,000, because the value of that money keeps getting 
diluted and diluted and diluted because the Federal Government, in 
essence, is stealing the value of what these senior citizens put in the 
bank. It is a form of legalized theft.
  Now, what morality is it that allows a government to steal from 
senior citizens, steal future opportunities from the next generation?
  I call that immorality. Theft is immorality. You don't steal from 
your

[[Page 11650]]

grandparents. You don't steal from your parents. You certainly don't 
steal from your children. But yet that's what we're doing.
  And then when we add in this consequential issue that will 
structurally change America forever, and we're telling ourselves that 
we have an obligation to grant amnesty to tens of millions of illegal 
aliens?
  Let's talk for a second about that bill in the Senate. The bill that 
the Senate passed is perpetual amnesty. It would never again allow for 
the Federal Government to meaningfully be able to deport any illegal 
alien ever again.
  It almost works like magic. An illegal alien gets into the United 
States, all they have to do is say the magic words to the ICE agents 
who may pick them up, and they say, I want to apply for political 
asylum. Once they say that--this may shock some of the people who are 
watching tonight--once an illegal alien says to an ICE agent, I want to 
apply for political asylum, they would be granted, at taxpayer expense, 
a lawyer, and that lawyer would help them to gain their U.S. 
citizenship. What a deal.
  So you come into the United States, you eventually are on your ``path 
to citizenship,'' at taxpayer expense. And what form of benefits would 
be available to you?
  Well, under the Senate bill, you can immediately get a Social 
Security card, and you can immediately get access to a driver's 
license.
  If you have a Social Security card, Mr. Speaker, and if you have 
access to a driver's license, there's an awful lot of advantages that 
you could have very quick. You can apply for a lot of public subsidized 
benefits that can be yours, and you've got an identity, and you're on 
your way.
  What I don't understand, Mr. Speaker, is that in this country we're 
generous. We're extremely generous. Every year we allow 1 million 
people who are not American citizens, who are foreigners, we welcome 
with open arms 1 million people a year as new U.S. citizens into this 
country. That's amazing.
  We've got something over 300 million people, and we say come in, a 
million every year.
  Mr. Speaker, if you look at all the countries in the world, there's 
over, what, 120 countries, more than that in the world. If you add up 
every country in the world, Mr. Speaker, and a lot of countries have a 
lot more population than we have, if you add up all those countries 
combined, they don't allow as many new immigrants into their countries, 
in all the countries of the world, as the United States of America does 
in 1 year.
  We are amazing in our generosity. Plus there are 4 million people on 
a waiting list every year waiting to get into the United States. We 
have a system of immigration. We have a system that's worked for years.
  The problem is, we have a lot of people that don't want to wait for 
that system to work. Four million people are waiting, are on the 
waiting list now. One million people got in this year, legally.
  Why is it, again, that we are tripping over ourselves to help the 
people who have broken our laws, who are in this country?
  Why is it that we aren't saying to those people, we have a waiting 
list; you need to go and apply and get on the waiting list and wait 
your turn, and then you can come into the country too.
  Why are we trying to figure out a way to fast-track the illegal 
people?
  Shouldn't we be apologizing to the people then, the 4 million people 
who are on that waiting list?
  I also wonder--people ask me, Mr. Speaker--I also wonder why that's 
our top priority. Why wouldn't our top priority, Mr. Speaker, be the 22 
million people who are American citizens who are looking for full-time 
employment right now?
  Shouldn't that be our top priority, trying to figure out how we can 
find them a job?
  You know, it's really interesting to me, in the survey that came out 
today from the Chamber of Commerce, they found that of all the small 
businesses in America, only 17 percent, fewer than one out of five 
small businesses hired anybody in the last 2 years.
  I'm going to say that again. The Chamber of Commerce found in a 
survey that of all the small businesses in America, less than 17 
percent, less than one out of five small businesses, and they're the 
engine of this economy, hired anybody on a full-time basis in the last 
2 years.
  That's a very sad commentary. There's not a lot of hiring. That's why 
I say America first, jobs first, wages for Americans first, benefits 
for Americans first. That's how sad this ``jobless recovery'' has been, 
which is no recovery at all.
  Here's what's even worse. Less than 20 percent of small businesses 
say that in the next 2 years do they have any plans at all to hire.
  If we know that only 17 percent of small businesses have hired in the 
last 2 years, and less than 20 percent will hire in the next 2 years, I 
don't think that we should be giving amnesty to tens of millions of 
illegal aliens.
  Let's focus, Mr. Speaker, on America first. Let's focus on finding 
jobs for those 22 million who are looking for full-time jobs. Let's 
focus on increasing the wages for American workers first, and let's 
focus on increasing the benefit packages for Americans first. That's 
what we need to do, Mr. Speaker.
  And I thank the American people for this opportunity to be a 
Representative and stand in the greatest well that there is in the 
world.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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