Restore Statutory PAYGO

Floor Speech

Restore Statutory PAYGO

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as the co-chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition which has long advocated for restoring statutory PAYGO as an important budgetary tool necessary to impose discipline in both chambers of Congress as it regards the collection and use of taxpayer money. I would like to thank the majority leader, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), for his strong, steadfast, and unquestioned support for statutory PAYGO and for his words earlier this morning in support of this important legislation.

As I stated and as the majority leader has, this is an important budget tool to impose discipline. It is a tested and proven tool from the 1990s that again, as has been mentioned, President Clinton and former Speaker Newt Gingrich agreed to back in the 1990s. I think it is imperative that opponents of this legislation explain more clearly why they lived with PAYGO with little or no complaint in the last decade, and the surpluses aided by such disciplines, and why they abandoned such discipline which led to a doubling of the national debt over the last 8 years.

We need to make priorities and tough decisions so as to ensure fairness to future generations. It is essential to adopt statutory PAYGO as one step, among many others, to ensure both economic and national security. It is not fair to future generations for the United States to in any way be beholden to foreign creditors. The interest on the national debt alone is more than we spend on education and veterans combined.

Statutory PAYGO is necessary to impose discipline in both Chambers. One of the earlier speakers mentioned that since adopting PAYGO in the House rules, that the deficits have worsened. Unfortunately, much of the legislation passed out of this Chamber that abides by House rules for PAYGO come back to this Chamber after action in the Senate that strips how we pay for our priorities. That's why again reinstating PAYGO as a budgetary tool in statute is necessary for both the House and the Senate, and fortunately is supported by the current administration.

So, Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ask the hard questions about what worked in the 1990s to produce budget surpluses, about what didn't work over the past 8 years to result in a national debt, a record national debt, and what tools are necessary to get us back on the path of fiscal discipline and surpluses once again. Statutory PAYGO is one key, one tool, among others, that will lead to the kind of tough decisions and priorities necessary to restore the fiscal health of the country.

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