Senator John Ensign, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, today commented on new spending numbers released from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the prediction earlier this month from the Democrat co-chair of President Obama's Fiscal Commission, Erskine Bowles, who stated that the United States will face a fiscal crisis before the next two years if we fail to take swift and serious action on spending cuts.
"I could not agree more with this prediction," said Ensign. "But I would argue that the United States is already facing a fiscal crisis, and that within the next two years, we will actually reach our borrowing and spending limit. New numbers released this week by the Congressional Budget Office show that our national debt will equal the size of our country's economy by September; not only is this unsustainable, it's frightening.
The numbers released by the CBO also show that while President Obama's budget predicts a debt-to-GDP ratio of 107%, gross debt will actually double to $27.6 trillion or 116% of GDP in the last year of the President's budget.
"I'm tired of both sides of the aisle coming to the floor to talk about the need for spending cuts, but when legislation comes to the floor to cut spending levels, some members argue that the cuts are too deep. This isn't a time for empty spending cut negotiations; it's a time for swift and serious action to get our country back on track before we are too far down the road to turn back."
At a Senate Budget Committee hearing earlier this month, Erskine Bowles stated, "This problem is going to happen, it is a problem, we're going to have to face up to, in maybe 2 years, maybe a little less, maybe a little more."