Where is the Budget?

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Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. Where is the budget?

I thank the gentleman for yielding, thank him for taking the time to do this Special Order this evening on a critical, critical issue.

You know, April 15, by law, the Congress is supposed to have a budget resolution in place. We're supposed to have a document that actually places the parameters, sets the framework for all the spending that the Federal Government plans to do. And yet, here we are, 5 weeks later, still no budget. And, frankly, all the talk from the Democrats in Congress is that they're not going to do a budget resolution.

Look, families have to do a budget. Small business owners have to do a budget. Local school boards do a budget. Village councils do a budget. Mayors and city councils, States, everyone has to do a budget. But somehow the Federal Government, the biggest spender of money in the world, is not going to put a plan together.

Who'd have ever thought we'd see this day? I mean, think about this past year. Who would have ever imagined we'd see the things that we have witnessed from this Congress? Talk about a VAT tax, talk about a--you know, a $1.4 trillion deficit. Did you ever think we'd see that in America, a $12 trillion national debt?

And again, the talk of not even putting a budget together.

Look, when the President--part of the reason I think the Democrats don't want to actually do that document and show the American people where they plan on spending their money is because the budget we got from the White House was so ridiculous. The budget from the White House that the President sent to Congress, sent to the Budget Committee, we heard testimony from the various Federal agencies. The budget they sent, by Budget Director Orszag's own testimony, was unsustainable because it ran deficits anywhere from 7 to 10 percent of GDP each and every year of the 9-year budget window. And so it's no wonder they don't want to deal with that document. It's no wonder they don't want to put together their own budget.

But, frankly, you shouldn't be able to take a pass. Families, taxpayers, business owners out there, they don't get to take a pass. They have to put their budget together, and the Federal Government should do no less.

You know, last year the RSC offered a balanced budget, a budget that actually got to balance. We're working on that document again. We plan to bring it forward. We plan to lay out there what a balanced budget looks like, what fiscal responsibility looks like. We plan to do what families and small business owners have to do.

So it's a troublesome day. It's a sad day today when we have here the Congress of the United States not doing their responsibility and not putting together a budget document.

I yield back.

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Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I just want to pick up where the gentlelady from Tennessee was talking about. She says it's irresponsible not to do a budget. It most certainly is. Thirty-four days and counting. April 15, here we are May 19, 34 days the Federal Government hasn't done what the law tells us we are supposed to do in putting a budget resolution together. It is irresponsible, it is arrogant.

It is arrogant to not go through the markup, not have the debate, not have the hearings, not put that out there so the American taxpayer, the American family, the American small business owner can see how in fact this government plans in fact to spend their money.

But it is not just irresponsible, it is not just arrogant, it is immoral to do what this government is doing. It is just plain wrong to tell future generations of Americans, to tell our children and our grandchildren you are going to have to deal with a $12 trillion debt and counting and growing. You are going to have to pay that back. That is just plain wrong.

I mean one of the things that makes our country so special, one of the things that makes America the greatest Nation ever is the simple concept that parents make sacrifices for their children so that when they become adults they have life better than we did. And then they in turn do it for their kids, and each generation has done it for the next, and we get to be America, the greatest Nation ever, the highest standard of living in human history. And now for the first time we have the political class in this town telling the next generation, telling future generations, You know what, we are going to live for the now, we are going to spend for the moment, we are going to live for the moment, and we are going to send the bill to you.

It's not just arrogant and irresponsible; it is wrong. It is just plain wrong. This money has to be paid back. Way back in one of my first economics classes in college we learned a simple thing: There is no free lunch. You have to pay it back. Somebody's got to pay this back. And it shouldn't be put on the backs of our kids and our grandkids.

Think about where we are at today. And as we talked about the budget that the Democrats are proposing, the budget that the President sent to Capitol Hill makes matters worse. But where we are at today, we have to pay this year $200 billion just in interest on the debt. Within a couple years the interest payments alone will be a billion dollars a day. So it is not just arrogant and irresponsible, it is immoral. It is just plain wrong to do this.

That's why, because they are addicted to spending, they don't want to actually make cuts like we do in our budget. That's why they don't want to do this process. That's why they don't want to have a budget. And it is just, as I said, it is just plain wrong. And I appreciate the gentleman taking this hour to talk about this most fundamental issue, this most basic issue, and let people understand what in fact is really going on with their government today.

With that I would yield back.

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