[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 763-764]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                THE DEBT

  Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, Washington received a loud wake-up call 
this week. On Monday, the Congressional Budget Office, or the CBO, 
released its biannual ``Budget and Economic Outlook'' report and the 
projections for the next decade are very sobering. The nonpartisan 
study found that over the next decade our country will grow to nearly 
$30 trillion in debt. Folks, that is $30 trillion. This is 
unbelievable. It is unmanageable.
  A number this large is nearly impossible to comprehend. Maybe that is 
why this seems to have gone unnoticed, buried under headlines about 
Presidential politics, Super Bowl 50, Snowzilla, and Apple's latest 
earnings statement. But what we can comprehend is who is responsible 
for paying off this debt eventually. We are--the American people.

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  With nearly $19 trillion in debt today and over $100 trillion in 
future unfunded liabilities, we are well past the tipping point. This 
means each American family is responsible today for nearly $1 million 
of this debt. In addition, the Social Security and Medicare trust funds 
are expected to go to zero in roughly 15 short years.
  According to an AEI analysis of this CBO report, spending on Social 
Security, Medicare, and other health care programs will grow at an 
average annual rate of 5\1/2\ percent from 2016 to 2026, pushing 
spending on Social Security and health care alone to upwards of $4.1 
trillion in 2026--just 10 short years from now.
  This is more than we spent last year on the entire Federal 
Government. This is not 20 years from now. This is in the immediate 
future. We will be spending more on these items than we did last year 
on the entire Government.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle recognize that we have a 
crisis. We all agree. However, their solution is simply to tax the 
working people of America more. That is exactly what we have been 
doing. It is not working.
  In the last 15 years, our Federal Government spending has grown from 
$2.4 trillion in the year 2000 to $3.7 trillion in constant 2015 
dollars last year. Because of that, over this same period--from 2000 to 
2015--our Federal debt has grown from $6 trillion in 2000 to $19 
trillion today. It is unbelievable.
  However, last year the Federal Government collected $3.2 trillion in 
taxes. This is the largest amount ever in our history. We have a 
spending problem, not a revenue problem. Furthermore, our country's 
debt is not interest-free. Taxpayers are already paying immensely for 
Washington's fiscal malfeasance.
  Last month, interest rates increased one-quarter of a point--only 
one-quarter of a point. But this equates to almost $50 billion of new 
interest expense every single year. Our country must borrow even more 
money to pay this additional interest expense. That is a true measure 
of total insolvency. This interest rate increase is widely suspected to 
be followed by another increase later this year.
  Imagine if interest rates go up to just their 50-year average of 5\1/
2\ percent, taxpayers would be paying almost $1 trillion in interest. 
This is more than twice what we spent on our military. It is more than 
twice what we spend on our discretionary nonmilitary spending. It is 
unmanageable, and we have to deal with it right now.
  Having been in the business world for over 40 years, there are four 
words that I used to hear often and we used them frequently: ``We 
cannot afford it.'' I personally have not heard these words once in 
Washington over this past year, my first year in the Senate. We simply 
cannot afford all we are spending today, and CBO says it will only get 
much worse.
  Just look at Washington's grand bargain this past year. I voted 
against this bad policy because it significantly added to the national 
debt and eradicated the conservative budget we put in place last year, 
which did cut $7 trillion out of the President's budget request of last 
year.
  Additionally, President Obama's economic failures and disastrous 
health care law have dangerously set our debt up to soar even higher 
after he leaves office. CBO projects ObamaCare will enroll 40 percent 
less participants than expected in 2016. This will result in the 
Federal Government spending more money to support the failed 
marketplace exchange so it does not collapse. The Hill reports that 
``spending on the marketplace is expected to rise to $56 billion next 
year, up from $38 billion this year. Within a decade, that total is 
expected to double to more than $109 billion.'' Plus, spending on 
health care programs has already jumped from $671 billion in 2008 to 
over $1.1 trillion this year. CBO projects that health care spending 
will nearly double in the next 10 years, reaching $2 trillion in 2026. 
This is a train wreck, and it is here.
  Clearly, Washington cannot continue spending like this, and we have 
to make the changes necessary today. We have already reached the point 
where our Federal debt has become the greatest threat to our national 
and global security. At this point, we cannot pay for the tools needed 
to defend our country.
  Last year we spent nearly 3.2 percent of GDP on defense--less than 
the 30-year average of 4.2 percent of GDP. This is the lowest level in 
over a decade. We have been at war for more than a decade, and in the 
process we have totally worn out our military equipment and desperately 
need to recapitalize and update it. More concerning, we are wearing out 
our people and cannot fully support our women and men on the 
frontlines.
  This crisis is here right now. It is real, and it is dangerous and 
threatens our very way of life. These are economic realities we must 
come to grips with quickly in order to turn things around and change 
the direction of our country. We can solve our national debt crisis, 
but Washington's business-as-usual approach must change and lawmakers 
must start saying: We cannot afford it.
  Solving the debt crisis starts with totally reinventing the failed 
budget process, which has only worked four times in the past 40 years. 
We have to also reduce the size of our Federal bureaucracy and start 
with redundant agencies. Washington already has 256 government programs 
running on autopilot, costing taxpayers $310 billion a year, and there 
are hundreds of billions of dollars in duplicate programs and more 
opportunities to reduce waste.
  It goes without saying that we need to get our economy growing again. 
We can do it by changing our archaic tax laws, by eliminating 
unnecessary regulations stifling our free enterprise system, and by 
finally unleashing the full potential of our energy resources here in 
America responsibly. We will not solve this debt crisis until we save 
Social Security and Medicare and address our spiraling health care 
costs.
  The solutions to these will take decades, but we have to start now. 
The CBO report reveals a stark reality: We are simply out of time. This 
debt crisis can no longer be ignored. It is here now. Washington must 
face up to that stark reality. We simply must start making the tough 
decisions required to put a plan in place to reduce this outrageous 
debt. We must do this right now for our future, for our children, and 
for our children's children.
  I yield my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.

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