Facts About Our Debt Ceiling

Floor Speech

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Ms. GARCIA of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to lay out a few facts about the debt ceiling.

Raising the debt ceiling is about meeting obligations the government has already made and has nothing to do with new spending.

Since World War I, we have raised the debt ceiling under every single President--every single President.

So let's remember a few facts: The national debt under the Trump administration rose significantly by $8 trillion, a total of roughly 25 percent of the entire debt at the time he left office. That is one- quarter of the entire debt by President Trump.

Republicans voted three times--three times--to raise the debt limit under the Trump administration.

So where was the Republican outrage then?

President Biden has lowered the deficit by $1.7 trillion during the first 2 years of office and has a plan to reduce it even more.

Mr. Speaker, yet House Republicans used their very first bill to hand a giveaway to big corporations and billionaires that cheat on their taxes, adding an explosive $114 billion to the deficit, and still no plan to reduce debt. House Democrats put people over politics, solutions over rhetoric.

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