National Debt Hits Record-High $ 8 Trillion

NATIONAL DEBT HITS RECORD-HIGH $8 TRILLION
October 21, 2005

Tanner: 'We're Mortgaging Our Children's Future to Other Countries'

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The federal debt has reached a record-high $8 trillion, which Congressman John Tanner said is an alarming, historic moment for the country.

"Forty-eight months ago, we were recording the largest budget surpluses in our nation's history, and we were on track to pay off our national debt. In these four short years, the Bush Administration and a Congress friendly to the Administration have reversed that trend, instead piling on a staggering $1.3 trillion in new debt. We are currently borrowing about $615,000 a minute, much of it from foreign countries who do not see the world as we do. We are literally mortgaging our children's future to other countries."

The federal government has added since 2001 about $50 billion each year in additional interest payments on the federal debt, Tanner said.

"That is $50 billion more of your tax money each year that we are forced to use for interest payments instead of human capital investments like homeland security, infrastructure, health care and education. There has never been a country in the history of the world that is strong and free with an unhealthy, uneducated work force and a dilapidated infrastructure. That is the direction this country is headed toward if we do not stop the reckless borrow-and-spend policies of this Administration and this Congress."

Congressman Tanner has introduced legislation with Sen. Chuck Hagel establishing a bipartisan commission to study the federal debt's long-term effect on entitlement programs, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Tanner is a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition - a group of conservative to moderate Democrats focused on fiscal responsibility - that wrote recently to President Bush requesting an emergency bipartisan budget summit to discuss the nation's finances.

"Today, our nation's long term fiscal security is growing even bleaker with the addition of billions of dollars in emergency supplemental funds needed to rebuild the Gulf Region," Tanner and his colleagues wrote in their Sept. 28 letter to President Bush. "As such, members of the Blue Dog Coalition urge you to immediately call for an emergency bipartisan budget summit to get our nation's fiscal house in order."

Congressman Tanner and the Blue Dogs earlier this year offered a 12-step budget reform plan to address the federal government's fiscal irresponsibility. The proposal requires, among other things, clean audits for all federal agencies, a balanced budget, and the establishment of a rainy day fund to be used in the event of a natural disaster.

A member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Tanner represents Tennessee's 8th Congressional district in West and Middle Tennessee.

http://www.house.gov/tanner/press109-048.htm