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Mr. BOEHNER. Let me thank my colleague for yielding, and ask my colleagues today to vote for the No Budget, No Pay Act.
You know, the promise here is pretty simple. It says that there should be no long-term increase in the debt limit until there's a long-term plan to deal with the fiscal crisis that faces our country.
Every hardworking taxpayer in America knows that they have to do a budget. Every hardworking taxpayer understands that you can't continue to spend money that you don't have.
We are committed to continue to do a budget every year. And if you think about this, it's not just that we've done a budget the last 2 years that addresses our fiscal crisis. Even when the Democrats had control, in the 2 years before that, you all did a budget. And yet, for 4 years, nearly 4 years, the United States Senate has not done a budget.
And so this bill before us is real simple. It says, Congress, if you don't do a budget, you don't get paid. I have no doubt that we're going to do our work. We're committed to doing a budget and a 10-year plan to solve our budget crisis and to balance our budget.
Frankly, I think it's time for the Senate and the White House to produce a budget that will balance over the next 10 years.
You know, most Americans would look up and go, wait a minute, why do they need 10 years to balance the budget?
But we know with baby boomers retiring, and the fact that it wasn't prepared for, it's going to take a little more time. But my goodness, we ought to be able to balance the budget in the next 10 years.
Balancing the budget over the next 10 years means that we save the future for our kids and our grandkids. It also means that we strengthen programs like Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid that can't continue to exist in the current form without some kind of controls.
It's time for Congress to get serious about this, and this is the first step in an effort to bring real fiscal responsibility to Washington. It's real simple. No budget, no pay.
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