The National Debt

Floor Speech

Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, let me just read a quote here:

``Leadership means that the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.''

Some things never change. That was Senator Barack Obama in 2006 talking about the seriousness of the debt problem and the crisis that we find our Nation in. And today, we've spent over $1.5 trillion of money that we don't have.

Republicans have put forward a budget, a proposal, a blueprint to begin to have the serious discussion that our country needs to have to make sure that the children and we are not left with an unrecoverable debt situation. Americans expect leadership. Even if you don't agree, Americans expect leadership from us, and what do they get? They get demonization. They get accusations. They get fear tactics.

You know, our senior citizens in many cases sit at their homes and wonder what's going to happen. They find themselves concerned with their financial situation. And people on the other side of the aisle sometimes get together and figure out how they can take that fear and use it to a political advantage. That's terrible. Has it been done on both sides? It has.

But today is the day that we get together, and we have to hit the reset button and say for the future of our country, we have got to have a real serious conversation about how to save this Nation for the generation to come after us. This country is the greatest country in the world, and we are not about to give that up. It will never happen. We are going to be the strongest country for the foreseeable future.

There are a lot of folks talking ourselves down thinking that we are going to be usurped by another country. No, we are not. But we do have to come together, and we do have to have the serious conversations if we are going to maintain our place as the world's superpower and as a shining example to other countries all around the world.

I fully believe in what this country is. I fully believe in what we represent, but the days of demonizing each other and not leading have got to end.

It has been 756 days since Senate Democrats have passed a budget. The most basic job of a legislator is to pass a budget, and we haven't done it. Instead, we bicker. Instead, we argue. Instead, we run 30-second television ads and try to scare people so that we can win a reelection again. It's happened on both sides.

But today, please, I implore my friends on the other side of the aisle, on both sides of the aisle, stop today and let's have adult conversations. America is too great, America is too important, and America is too excellent of an example for the rest of the world to be mired down and bickering and to be mired down in debt.

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