[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16734-16735]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              DEBT CEILING BILL FINANCIALLY IRRESPONSIBLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Brooks) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROOKS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, Benjamin Franklin advised: ``When 
you run in debt, you give to another power over your liberty.''
  Washington is in the middle of an epic battle between elected 
officials who, on the one hand, are financially responsible, have the 
understanding and backbone needed to prevent an American bankruptcy, 
heed the wisdom of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, and fight out-of-
control debt that threatens our liberty, and you have those elected 
officials who, on the other hand, are financially irresponsible and are 
too weak to resist spending money America does not have, has to borrow 
to get, and can't afford to pay back.
  This week Congress faces yet another last-second debt deal, 
negotiated in secret, sprung at the last moment, that fails the 
American people by not fixing the cause of the debt ceiling problem: 
out of control deficits.
  Earlier this year America's Comptroller General and the nonpartisan 
Congressional Budget Office warned Congress and President Obama that 
America's current financial path is ``unsustainable,'' meaning that 
America faces a debilitating insolvency and bankruptcy unless we get 
our financial house in order.
  The CBO issued two other dire warnings:
  First, America's debt service costs will increase by, roughly, $600 
billion in 10 years. For perspective, $600 billion is more than what 
America spends on national defense, which begs the question: Where will 
the money for that
additional $600 billion debt payment come from?
  Second, the CBO warns that, by 2025, America will face an unending 
string of annual trillion-dollar deficits, deficits that can only end 
in a debilitating American insolvency and bankruptcy.
  Mr. Speaker, economic principles don't care if you are a family, a 
business, or a country. If you borrow more money than you can pay back, 
you go bankrupt.
  There are good and bad ways to raise the debt ceiling. Today's debt 
bill is bad because it not only fails to restrain America's spending 
addiction, it makes things worse by increasing spending by $80 billion.
  I have been in Congress since 2011, when America's debt blew through 
the $14 trillion mark. Now America's debt is $18 trillion. This debt 
deal blows America's debt through the $19 trillion mark, meaning 
America's bank account will soon be $5 trillion weaker than it was in 
2011.
  Rather than fixing America's deficit problem while we still have the 
financial ability to do so, this debt deal kicks the can down the road 
to 2017,

[[Page 16735]]

when America will be financially weaker and less able to rise to the 
financial challenge that threatens us.
  Mr. Speaker, today's debt bill is akin to a sick patient going to the 
emergency room and getting pain-killing drugs that make the patient 
feel better, yet does nothing to cure the disease that kills him. In 
the real world, that is medical malpractice. Similarly, today's debt 
bill that makes America feel good, but does nothing to cure our debt 
disease, is governing malpractice.
  President George Washington advised Congress: ``No pecuniary 
consideration is more urgent than the regular redemption and discharge 
of the public debt. On none can delay be more injurious.''
  George Washington's advice in 1793 is prudent today. Congress and 
President Obama must balance the budget before America's debt burden 
spirals out of control, before it is too late to prevent the 
debilitating insolvency and bankruptcy that awaits us.
  Mr. Speaker, I exhort Washington to rise to the challenge and be 
financially responsible when raising the debt ceiling. The first step 
is to defeat this debt bill that not only fails to fix a time-critical 
problem, but that actually makes America's spending addiction $80 
billion worse. America's future as a great Nation and a world power 
depends on it.
  I will vote against this debt deal. I urge my colleagues to be 
financially responsible--do the same--and insist that the debt ceiling 
be raised only if we simultaneously fix America's addiction to deficit 
spending. Today's debt ceiling bill fails that benchmark. It threatens 
America. It should be defeated.

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