STATUTORY PAY-AS-YOU-GO ACT OF 2009 -- (House of Representatives - July 22, 2009)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CAMPBELL. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, PAYGO is a sham. Now, that's a very strong word, but the facts that support it are equally strong. In the last Congress since Democrats took control and PAYGO was enacted, $420 billion of new spending was exempted from its provisions. Over the last few weeks, this House has passed nine new spending bills. Every one of those new spending bills increased spending over the last year by as much as 22 percent, and not a single dollar of those spending increases was paid for. Every one will add to the deficit, add to the debt, and about 46 cents of every one of those dollars will be borrowed, primarily from the Chinese, Indians, and other foreigners.
The deficit has gone from $160 billion to nearly $2 trillion since PAYGO started. How does that make this a good thing? How is that an example of how this has worked to control spending and be fiscally responsible?
And in PAYGO, spending increases don't have to be paid for but tax cuts do, and there is nothing in here whatsoever to deal with our ballooning massive debt.
Mr. Speaker, PAYGO is nothing more than a public relations effort to make the most profligate Congress ever appear to be less profligate. The American people are not buying it.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CAMPBELL. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin. Americans know they should save for their retirement, but it's tough because you've got to put money away now for later, and there are things to spend it on now. You know, there is a nice dinner to go to; there is a vacation to take, maybe a TV or a car to buy or something like that. So what do we do? I do it. Probably many people listening to this do it. Your employer takes it out of your paycheck so that you kind of never see it, and it goes straight to your retirement so you can save it so that you know it will be there when you need it.
What that is is an external discipline, making us do the thing we know is right for us to do but that, as human beings, we have a hard time doing ourselves without that external discipline.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is that external discipline. Because Members of Congress are no different than anybody else. When we have money, we spend it. When Republicans were in charge, we spent too much money. We overspent by hundreds of billions of dollars. Now the Democrats are in charge. They're overspending by trillions of dollars. But whether it's hundreds of billions or trillions, whichever majority has been in this Congress, we have spent more than we have taken in. I can't remember the exact figure; but I think that for 43 out of the last 45 years this Congress has spent more money than revenue that has come in and has run a deficit, regardless of who was in the White House or who was in charge. We can't do that.
What this bill says is you can't increase spending faster than people's incomes. It's that simple. Because if you do, if the Federal Government spends more money, increases spending by more than people's incomes have increased, there's only two ways to do it, borrow it or increase taxes. And if we continue to do it, we continue to borrow and we continue to increase taxes until we will have no economy and no growth left. Mr. Speaker, that's where we are right now.
Mr. Speaker, that is where we are right now. We don't have to wait 10 years, 15 years or 20 years. We are in that position right now. The American people are taxed too much, and we are borrowing way, way too much. This bill, this discipline, this Republican substitute will bring that to an end; and I urge us all to support it.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT