Budget Before Borrowing Act of 2012

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 515 and as the designee of the majority leader, I have a motion at the desk.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of the resolution under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I rise today as the proud primary sponsor of the subject resolution that is before the desk.

Madam Speaker, I'd like to start my conversation with a few numbers: $15.2 trillion. That is the size of our national debt. We as a Nation are borrowing at the rate of $58,000 per second. That is approximately $45,000 for each man, woman, and child in America. This type of debt is not sustainable.

Madam Speaker, this resolution is offered today to send a message to the Nation and to the world that this Chamber is going to lead and not hide. We are going to deal with the issue of the national debt once and for all because it is time. The path that we are on is not sustainable. It is a path of bankruptcy, it is a path that will destroy the American Dream if we do not stand up to the plate and lead us out of this fiscal nightmare that we now find ourselves in.

Now, many people in this town and in this Chamber and in the Chamber on the other side of the Capitol probably would like this issue to go away until after the election. The problem is, is that the issue will not go away. And even though if we don't want to deal with it politically, we need to deal with it substantively. And my resolution that is before this Chamber will send a message that the constant borrowing on the backs of our children and our grandchildren must come to an end.

I quote the words of our own President when he was Senator in the U.S. Senate. The path that we are on is similar to the words he echoed and stated in the U.S. Senate Chamber when he said this constant borrowing, this national debt is a complete failure of leadership in the White House. We need to lead, and that is what we are going to do.

So I ask for support on this resolution from all of my colleagues, to stand with us, make the hard decisions, deal with this issue to stop this insanity that is truly a threat to our very Nation. And also, it is a threat to any economic recovery that our Nation hopes to enjoy in the short term, because if we do not get the debt under control, small business America, our entrepreneurs, the people that are going to put Americans back to work will not have the confidence or the certainty to invest in the American market that is going to lead to real jobs and to deal with the problem of our unemployment once and for all.

So with that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, what I would like to say is that time has passed since we passed the Balanced Budget Control Act. There has been no action on the debt. We have seen nothing out of the White House as to a plan to deal with this national crisis. And my colleague on the other side, I will remind, that I am a conferee on that conference committee to deal with the payroll tax rates, to deal with unemployment, and to deal with the doc fix.

We were here at the end of December. I was here over the New Year's break, Thursday, Friday, working on it. We are ready to do the work. And I'm glad to hear my colleague on the other side of the aisle say that now the House Democrats are here to do the work. We do need the Senate to join into that conversation, and my hope is that they will join into that conversation very soon.

But we are capable men and women in this Chamber, Madam Speaker. I am confident that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We will deal with the issue of the payroll tax rate. We will deal with the issue of the unemployment. We will deal with the issue of the doc fix. But we will not take our eye off of what is becoming one of the fundamental issues of our generation, and that is our national debt. And that's what this resolution speaks to and will constantly remind all of us that we need to be diligent on this issue to get it taken care of once and for all.

And with that, I would like to yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul).

(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Rooney).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo).

I'd just like to remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that last time we took a vote on this issue back on the Budget Control Act in August was a much different time than today. Since August, we've been waiting for a plan from the other side to deal with our national debt. We've been waiting for a plan from the White House to deal with our national debt. Nothing has occurred.

So, Madam Speaker, there is no repudiation of our vote from August. This is consistent with what the American people are telling us, that we have to get our act together in Washington.

I join my colleagues on the other side. My hand is open to work hand in hand to deal with these problems once and for all. I'm willing to sacrifice my political life to do what needs to be done for the American people. I just hope my friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join in that same sentiment.

Let's put politics aside. Let's deal with the substance of the day. Let's deal with this underlying national crisis that is represented in our national debt. You have many friends over here that are looking to reach out hand to hand, join arm in arm to deal with this problem and deal with the economy of our Nation once and for all. I just ask you to jump and join us rather than fight us.

With that, I'm happy to yield to my colleague from Arizona (Mr. Flake) for 2 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I would just like to remind my colleague on the other side of the aisle that when you get a credit card bill that you can no longer afford, you do pay it, but you cut it up, and you stop the spending so you don't exacerbate the problem.

With that, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

Madam Speaker, I would just remind the gentleman that what we have done on our side of the aisle is at least we have put a plan in writing by adopting and approving the budget. We're just looking. In the last 7 months we've been waiting for a plan in black and white from the White House on how we are going to get out of this national debt crisis. Not political speeches, but in black and white so that we can take it back to the American people and have an open and honest debate with them as to where we're going to prioritize our spending and how we're going to get out of this hole.

That's what we're looking for, and that's what my colleague from Arizona (Mr. Flake) is talking about. We are at the point on this side of the aisle, ladies and gentlemen, of saying we don't care who's at fault. I'm at the point--Democrat, Republican, we're at $15.2 trillion, whoever is responsible for it, I could care less.

What I care about are my kids--and my grandkids, who aren't even born, who aren't even on the face of this Earth--and getting our act together in Washington and getting a national plan put together so we can join arm in arm and stand with each other to deal with this issue.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp).

Madam Speaker, I would like to say to Mr. Hoyer that I have a tremendous amount of respect for him as a Member of this body. And I have joined him to support the ``Go Big'' effort.

And what I would say is, by this resolution, look at what we have done on our side of the aisle. We have brought this conversation out of the back rooms. We have brought the ideas and proposals that we've heard from Mr. Blumenauer from Oregon, I believe, who talked about comprehensive tax reform, agriculture reform on the floor of this House, in front of the American people, in an open and honest manner. And what we have done on our side of the aisle is to stress that these conversations will no longer happen behind closed doors, but they will happen on the floor of this Chamber. And I'm confident, I am confident that when we come together like we are, like the foundation that we are setting in our conversations, that we are going to solve this problem. But until that solution is enacted, I will get up every day as a Member of this House to champion the cause of getting the fiscal house of Washington, DC in order, to get our reckless spending under control, and get this economy going.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Palazzo).

Madam Speaker, I'm happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Buerkle).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. DesJarlais).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Ross).

I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida.

We believe we have about three or four.

Madam Speaker, could I inquire as to the amount of time we have left?

Madam Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Amodei).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I thank my colleague on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Levin, for engaging in this debate today that is so important, in my opinion, to the future of this Nation, to the future of the world, in the sense that we need to get this issue under control once and for all.

The national debt is a serious threat to our very existence as a nation. You don't have to take my word for it. You can take the word of the former joint chief of staff, Admiral Mullen, who, when he was asked by the President what is the biggest threat to our national security, responded: Not a military threat, but the national debt. A fiscal threat is what jeopardizes us most in regards to our national security.

When I hear that type of opinion and advice coming out of our military leaders, I am very concerned. It should send a message across the nation that this debt needs to be addressed. It doesn't necessarily just need to be addressed for the purposes of the threat it represents to our national security, but also the threat that it represents to the economic recovery that we are trying to kindle in this city across America.

The national debt represents a threat to that American recovery when it comes to putting our men and women back to work because it is the cancer that is causing concern across all of small-business America and all across the private sector when they express that they don't have the confidence or certainty that Washington will take care of the problems that threaten us most. So it is time that we come up with a hard plan.

My colleagues during this debate referenced the House budget as the plan that was adopted here, that somehow by voting for this resolution we contradict ourselves because we voted for that House budget because it called for an increase in the debt ceiling. I would remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that budget only passed this House. The Senate has yet to enact a budget.

It will soon be 1,000 days that the Senate of the United States of America has not passed a budget. If we don't have a U.S. House and a U.S. Senate committed budget that we can rely upon to solve this issue, how can we only rely on the House budget to see us through?

This resolution today sends a message to the Senate and to the Nation that the House of Representatives will remain committed to finding a solution on this issue.

The second threat that it represents to our American recovery and putting men and women back to work is if our interest rates in the private sector, which are keyed upon the national debt and the interest rates that are charged for our borrowing costs as a governmental entity, if those interest rates in the private sector increase, you're not going to have the capital to invest in small-business America or in the private sector that is going to lead us out of this economic turmoil that we find ourselves in, because they won't be able to afford that capital that will build the next plant, that will build the next assembly line or build the next retail operation that will put people back to work.

The bottom line is this debt touches everything across America. What we are doing with this resolution is saying we are going to deal with it, and we are going to continue to deal with it until we get a plan in place from the White House, from the U.S. Senate, and from the U.S. House that deals with it once and for all and brings certainty and competence back to the American market.

Madam Speaker, it is time to lead this Nation, not hide. It is time to put our ideas in writing, debate them with the American people in an open and honest fashion, and once and for all even be willing to sacrifice our political lives to do what is right for the American people. I am committed to doing that if it means that we will save my children's generation and the generations yet to come. That's what needs to be done.

That's what needs to be done, and I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle know that. We know it on our side of the aisle, and our hand is open to work in a bipartisan fashion. So I am glad that I heard many comments today on the other side of the aisle showing they are committed to that also. I am confident that when we join hands, when we come together, we will solve this issue and that we will solve the economic problems we face as a Nation, because together the history of our Nation has shown that we can overcome any obstacle in America, any threat to our existence once we unite, not divide, and put forth a commonsense solution to our problems.

With that, Madam Speaker, I ask all of my colleagues to support this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, according to a new poll by The Washington Post and ABC News, 84 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job. I don't know that the other 16 percent are paying attention, because we're not doing our job well. And this certainly is not doing our job well. The reason it is not doing our job well is because it is a pretense, a sham. This legislation is to pay bills that we've already incurred. Whether, as the gentleman said, it was incurred with your votes or whether it was incurred with our votes, we have incurred those expenses. This is about whether America is going to pay its bills. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, the previous gentleman said nobody had done anything about the debt. In point of fact, we did do something about the debt. We put revenue at levels commensurate with our spending. As a result, in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 and 2001--in 1997 we brought the deficit down to $25 billion, and for the next 4 years, we had a surplus. Now a couple of those years were not real surpluses because we counted on Social Security revenue. But two of those years were real surpluses.

This is about whether we pay our bills that we have incurred. Not doing this would be irresponsible, and would lead, I think, to further disrespect by the public, and properly so. One of the reasons for this feeling by the public is that Americans are tired of political games. This is a political game. This is a game that will say, see, I voted against debt.

Now, let me tell you how you can vote against debt. When you cut taxes in 2001 and 2003--and I agree with my friend, it's not about blame. It is about learning, however. When we cut taxes in 2001 and 2003 under George Bush, we didn't pay for them. We pretended they would pay for themselves. They didn't. Alan Greenspan says they won't. We ought to learn from that.

Learning from that, we ought to say yes, we'll pay our debts. The President doesn't want this money. It's not for the President; it's for bills that we incurred in fighting two wars, in giving tax cuts primarily to the wealthiest in America, to passing a prescription drug program that frankly all of us now support, but we didn't pay for it. And as a result, we got deeply into debt. And we have to get out of that debt, and we have to show courage, wisdom, and hopefully intellectual honesty in getting to that.

The American public is tired of seeing Republicans spending time on votes simply because of electoral positioning. And, frankly, they'd be tired of us doing the same thing. But that's all this is. It's so we can say: Look what we voted for. This is not our debt, we voted against it. But that's not responsible, and it's not honest. And I think most of you know that.

The resolution before us today is simply another waste of time. More than that, it undermines confidence here and around the world. Some of that debt, of course, we owe to people around the world. It is the essence of political gamesmanship, and does nothing to reduce the debt or create jobs. And we spend a whole day on it. As a matter of fact, this is the only full day we are going to spend in January debating any issue.

Americans know that we ought to pay our bills. They know we reached a deal in August that said both parties will work together to address our deficits in a way that will provide certainty to our businesses, markets, and families around the dinner table.

Agreeing to this resolution would only provide more uncertainty at a time when our people need to see us working together on a big, balanced deal to meet our fiscal challenges. My friend and I are both for that effort. I am very much for that effort. But I don't pretend that not paying the bills that we have incurred is going to solve that problem. The only thing that's going to solve that problem is we're going to ask everybody to contribute their fair share. Yes, we're going to have to make some cuts. And we're going to have to make some cuts that neither side will like, and we're going to have to raise revenues that neither side will like.

But I will tell my friend who is waiting for his grandchildren, I have three grandchildren now, and I have two great grandchildren, and he's right; they are the ones who are going to have to pay this bill.

And I saw my young friend, a new Member from South Carolina, and I can't recall his name right this second.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I saw my young friend passionate about not passing these bills along to his children. I thought to myself, I could give that speech. But, very frankly, I voted against cutting taxes without paying for them. I voted against the AMT without paying for it. We paid for it when we set the AMT. I think it needs to be fixed, and we paid for it.

I will vote ``no'' on this resolution, which comes as no surprise after you've heard me talk, and I strongly encourage my colleagues to do the same. Why? America is disheartened because they do not believe we are honest in dealing with them. They believe we play political games. They believe that we are not addressing the issues they know are of importance and they know do not have easy, simplistic answers.

I hope Democrats who vote ``no'' are joined by a large number of Republicans, not because you like debt, not because any of us like debt. And, very frankly, I voted for the Clinton revenue increases in 1993, and the prediction on your side of the aisle was that it would destroy the economy, unemployment would spike, and the deficit would explode. None of that happened. You were wrong. All of us are wrong from time to time. Dead wrong.

As a matter of fact, we enjoyed the best economy I have seen in my adult life in the 1990s. And we have seen the worst recession in my life after pursuing the Bush policies for 8 years. Yes, we were in charge for the last 2, but we couldn't change policies because the President had the veto and a majority of the votes to sustain that veto on this floor.

So ladies and gentlemen, let's be honest with the American people. We've all incurred a debt. We all spent the money. We drove on the roads, we were defended abroad, we invested in health care, research. We all incurred these debts. We know we need to solve it. We know that medicine will be tough. But honesty will make it easier, honesty between ourselves, honesty with the American people, and honesty, integrity and courage.

I hear around this country talk about Greece has a real problem. They are 128 percent, I think, in debt; we're only at about 100 percent. If you count our internal debt, it's less than that. But the problem that Greece has is they don't have the resources to solve their problem. America, the good news for us is we have the resources to solve our problems if we have the courage and political will to do so. This vote is a small token of showing that we have the courage, the wisdom and the political will to do so.

We need to pay our bills. Vote ``no'' on this resolution. Show the American people that we have courage, that we have wisdom, and we can have the political will to make America the continuing strongest country on the face of the Earth.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for his comments. And I want to thank him for his participation in addressing this issue. And frankly, in my opinion, he was one of the 100 signatories that we had saying let's get a big deal, we have to get a handle on this debt. I want to thank him. But I want to assure him as well, I've been here just a little longer than he has, this debate

has been going on for some period of time. This is not a new debate. With all due respect, it's been on this floor--I've been raising this issue for some 20 years, very frankly, others have as well on both sides of the aisle. The debate has been going on, but as I said, we need to summon the courage and political will to not just debate it, but to address it and address it effectively. And I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

You know, there's a very basic fact--I've listened to the rhetoric-- if House Republicans prevailed on this bill, what would be the result? Chaos. Chaos.

The House Republicans have become the ``party of chaos.'' Six months ago, they took us to the brink of default. No one in this country liked what they saw--or maybe a very few--not the American public at large, surely not the markets, surely not the markets. But apparently House Republicans did, and you're at it again.

Here we are in the first full day in the House when we're in session this year debating a measure that would take us immediately back to the brink of default. House Republicans are once again relying on the votes of others to save them from themselves and to save this country from them.

This is posturing, not legislating. This is rhetoric, not reelection. And we've seen this movie before. 174 House Republicans voted for the Budget Control Act that set out the structure to keep the government functioning and address our long-term debt, but many decided to turn tail. And on September 14, 228 House Republicans voted in favor of the disapproval resolution to end the President's authority to pay our bills. That is what's fiscally responsible, paying bills.

Basically, they were for it before they were against it. It's a rerun of a bad movie when the American people clearly want us to move forward. And unfortunately, House Republicans have turned to Washington with the same confrontational tone they left when they nearly allowed the payroll tax and the unemployment insurance to expire. And I want to emphasize that, the same confrontation; instead of a spirit of seeking common ground, essentially confrontation. And I think the American people have said to you, enough is more than enough.

House Republicans act as if they don't already have a deadline looming, one with vast implications for millions of American families. That's what we should be talking about. In 6 weeks, the payroll tax cut expires for 160 million Americans, Federal unemployment insurance begins to end for more than 3 million people searching for work, and access to health care becomes endangered for 46 million seniors and the disabled.

Well, last month's jobs numbers were encouraging. The private sector created more than 200,000 jobs in December and nearly 3 million since the recovery began. But with 13 million Americans still looking for work, we need to do more. We should be doing everything possible, everything possible to ensure that our recovery doesn't falter. And you are here supporting something, if it prevailed, that would deeply impact our economy and economic growth.

So here we are in the third week of January. And now we have a conference committee on these issues, charged with the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance. But that hasn't yet happened, not for a lack of wanting on our part. We've been ready and eager to begin. Businesses and families that are trying to plan and budget for the year should not have to wait until the 11th hour, once again, for certainty. For Republicans, brinkmanship has, I'm afraid, as demonstrated today, become the rule.

So I urge we should reject this cynical, this rigidly ideological attempt to take us back to the brink of default. If you prevail, it wouldn't take us back to the brink; it would throw us over.

The resolution, fortunately, is going nowhere. Its only impact will serve to divide and distract from addressing the real needs of the American people. So I assume--it's happened once before--a majority, and maybe a vast majority, of the House Republicans will come down here and essentially contradict what they helped to pass. That contradiction isn't even good politics, and it's terrible policy.

I reserve the balance of my time.

It's now my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

It's now my privilege to yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished senior member of our committee, Mr. Charles Rangel of New York.

(Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to yield 3 minutes to another distinguished member of our committee, the gentleman from the State of New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

You know, I was looking over the vote from the 1st of August, and it's interesting to see and hear people coming forth who voted ``aye'' on August 1 and now essentially want to repudiate that.

I now yield 3 minutes to another very distinguished active member of our committee, James McDermott, Dr. McDermott, from the snowy State of Washington.

I yield myself 15 seconds.

Mr. Flake, the problem is, if you prevailed, you'd create an abyss.

Madam Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Georgia, another active member of our committee, Mr. Lewis.

It is now my privilege to yield 3 minutes to another distinguished member of our committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).

I yield 3 minutes to another distinguished member of our committee, the gentleman from the great State of Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I yield 3 minutes to a former active member of our committee, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).

Madam Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield 5 minutes to our distinguished whip, Mr. Hoyer from the great State of Maryland.

I yield the gentleman an additional 3 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Mr. Reed, Mr. Hoyer mentioned this. You know, on Ways and Means for years, once the Republicans gained the majority, we protested they weren't paying for anything. So this isn't a new issue. It isn't a new issue.

I now yield 5 minutes to the ranking member of the Budget Committee and a distinguished former member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen).

I yield the gentleman from Maryland an additional 2 minutes.

I now yield 3 minutes to the very active gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

How many more speakers do you have, Mr. Reed?

Let me reserve so I don't have to do this each time until, Mr. Reed, you finish, and then I'll close and then you'll close.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I shall consume.

It will take me just I think 30 seconds, maybe a minute.

You know, in a few words what the Republicans in the House are doing, they're playing with fire. And that's reckless. They know that others will put out the fire. And we'll vote, many of us, to do that today. And if we don't succeed, the Senate will do so.

This, I think, is worse than a charade because it really assumes that the agenda of this Congress should essentially be a kind of a plaything.

A number of the people who came to speak for this resolution voted in August for the resolution that brings us here today, including, I think, Mr. Reed.

So I think what's changed is not our responsibility, but the ability of some to kind of have it both ways, to vote ``yes'' on the resolution knowing that as it goes to the Senate, this potential damage to the economy will be saved.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

I thank my colleague, Mr. Levin.

You know, day after day, month after month, we hear Members of Congress--Republicans and Democrats alike--come to the floor of this House and say we've got to do more on jobs, we've got to make sure that we get this fragile economy moving again. Unfortunately, while we say those things in this body, we haven't yet taken up the President's jobs initiative that he presented to this Congress last September. We've taken little bits and pieces here and there. We've had 2 months now in the payroll tax cut--that's good news, I hope we can get the rest of it--but the rest of it has been absolutely ignored. But at least people said they wanted to focus on job creation and getting the economy moving again.

And what's incredible about today is we have our Republican colleagues advocating a course of action which, if we took them seriously, would wreak absolute havoc on the economy. It would destroy jobs throughout the economy. That's not just me saying it, that's Republican economists, independent economists, Democratic economists. If the United States, for the first time in its history, refused to pay its debts, if the United States, for the first time in its history, refused to make good on the full faith and credit of the United States, the economy would fall to pieces, millions of people would lose their jobs.

You know, if we want to be taken seriously we have to be serious about the consequences of our actions. And if we take the course of action being presented, we'd have a fiasco on our hands.

Look, the American people I think understand full well what's going on here, but I do think it's important to make clear what the debt ceiling does. You raise the debt ceiling in order to cover obligations already made. If we don't lift the debt ceiling, it's as if we woke up one morning and said, you know, we're not going to pay our mortgage, or if you went out and purchased goods and services with a credit card and said, hey, you know what, we're not going to pay our credit card today. Well, you know what happens? You lose your house if you do that. The credit card company comes after you for that. If the United States of America was to renege on the full faith and credit of its obligations, it would be a disaster in the international economy, and yet that is apparently the course of action being advocated by our Republican colleagues today.

Now, what makes this really political theater is everybody knows that more responsible Members of Congress and certainly the President of the United States are not going to let that happen. They are not going to allow that reckless outcome to happen. And that's why, in so many ways, this is unfortunately just political theater; and it's one of the things, frankly, that contributes to the American people's low view of the Congress, this kind of political game playing.

Another thing that contributes to that is Members of Congress' refusal to take responsibility for their own actions. Last year, we had the Republican budget on the floor of the House. There are major differences in the priorities between the Republican budgets and the Democratic budgets. But the reality is the Republican budget that was overwhelmingly voted for by our Republican colleagues would require us to lift the debt ceiling of the United States, the very debt ceiling that our Republican colleagues are now telling us they don't want to increase. It would require us. It would have added $7 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years.

How is it that people can come down and vote for a budget that says we're going to ask the United States to take on these additional obligations and then vote for a motion, a resolution, that refuses to take responsibility for those very actions? And I think that's why the American people are understandably losing much of the confidence certainly in this House of Representatives.

Obviously, we have big challenges with respect to the deficit. Let's get together and solve them. But as my colleague from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) said, in order to do that, we have to come to the table in the spirit of compromise.

And we have before the country a number of approaches. We've had a number of bipartisan commissions. We have Simpson-Bowles, Rivlin- Domenici. They have established a framework for resolving the deficit issue. All of their frameworks say, yes, we have to make some tough decisions on making cuts, but we also have to deal with the revenue side of the equation. And the major obstacle--let's just be clear--to dealing with the revenue side of the equation is we have a lot of folks who have taken the position that you can't close one corporate tax loophole for the purpose of deficit reduction.

I thank my colleague from Michigan.

We have our colleagues on the Republican side taking the position of the so-called Grover Norquist pledge, a pledge to Grover Norquist's organization as opposed to the pledge we all take to do our best to uphold the Constitution of the United States. And under that pledge, if you close a corporate tax loophole for the purpose of deficit reduction, you have violated your pledge. If you say, ``You know what? Gas prices are doing really well. Oil companies are doing just great. We don't think they need a taxpayer subsidy. We are going to get rid of it,'' you can't get rid of that if you are going to use some of that money for deficit reduction. It's a violation of the pledge.

So, yes, let's get serious about deficit reduction. Let's take a balanced approach. We have a bipartisan model--at least a framework--in Simpson-Bowles. Let's be serious about that. But the reason this process on the floor of the House today is not serious is because everybody recognizes the United States can't afford to default on its full faith and credit--everybody, that is, except for the folks who are apparently going to vote to say we can't raise the debt ceiling, that we are not going to take responsibility for paying for obligations already due and owing, budgets already passed. What kind of message is that to our children?

You've got to pay for your debts. But you know what? You don't really have to; wink, wink, nod, nod. Go ahead and buy those things on your credit card and then decide the next day you are not going to pay for them. What a terrible message that is.

So let's take responsibility, I will say to our colleagues, for our actions. Let's not play political games. And most of all, let's not follow the advice that our Republican colleagues today are recommending which would undoubtedly, if taken seriously, result in economic chaos and a huge loss of jobs.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, we are here today to try to prevent the national debt from going up another $1.2 trillion, but in a way, it's a formality because most everybody knows the national debt is going up $1.2 trillion. This is sad because this process is a very mixed effort to try to curtail spending. And this power of the President to ask for a debt increase, and then we have to get two-thirds of the Congress to prevent this from going up, this is a creature of Congress. It's also a creature of a mental status here in the Congress of overspending on just everything.

It would be nice if we could blame everything on the current administration or even the previous administration. But the crisis that we're in has been building over a long period of time, and it's very bipartisan. There's been way too much cooperation in this Congress because those who like spending cooperate, and they keep spending. And for a long time, we were able to get away with this because we were a very wealthy country. Now we're nonproductive. The good jobs are overseas, and yet the spending is escalating exponentially.

We're really not facing up to the reality that the problem is spending. Yes, we have to deal with the debt. But the debt is a consequence of too much spending. Where do we spend too much money? In two places: overseas and domestically. And we need to stop the spending.

Really, in my mind, it started about 40 years ago when there was a guarantee that you don't have to worry about debt because we always had somebody there to buy the debt. If we would have had a market rate of interest where you didn't have the Federal Reserve buying the debt, interest rates would go up and would force us to live within our means. As long as you have a Federal Reserve there with no linkage to anything of soundness--since 1971, the Congress has been reckless, and the deficits have continued to grow, and the crisis that we're facing today is an inevitable consequence.

I believe we're in denial here in the Congress. If we had the vaguest idea of how serious this crisis is financially, not only for us, but for the world, we'd cut spending because you can't solve the problem of debt by accumulating more debt. It's just impossible to do this.

And one other thing that I think we fail to do on both sides of the aisle is really cut spending overseas. It is considered that if you spend more money overseas you have more defense, and there's no truth to that. Just spending over $1 trillion a year overseas doesn't necessarily give you more defense. And yet nobody's willing to cut. Some of these automatic cuts that are just supposed to be in line that come out of the supercommittee, everybody's squirming already. How are we going to prevent these cuts?

And this pretense that we might cut $1 trillion over the next 10 years is total pretense. We're in total denial that it's cutting something. There's a proposed increased baseline budgeting of $10 trillion. We're going to cut $1 trillion over 10 years? That's $100 billion a year.

Our national debt is going up $100 billion a month. So it's really a charade. But the American people know it's a charade. They're tired of it, and they've heard about this for so long, and we need to make up our minds. Are we going to live within the confines of the Constitution? Cut the spending and balance the budget and get out of this mess.

But the crisis that we face, as I said, is not just domestic because it is a worldwide crisis. And if we don't do something, we will be forced, under very dire circumstances, because we cannot bail out the world. We are prepared now through our Federal Reserve to bail out all of Europe. We've been downgraded, France is downgraded, Greece is downgraded, and we believe that all we have to do is spend more money and inflate the currency. Believe me, we ought to face up to reality and live within our limits.