America's Debt Crisis

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Mr. REED. I appreciate the gentleman yielding, but I believe the gentlelady from Alabama controls the time.

Mrs. ROBY. Thank you.

I yield to the gentleman from New York as much time as he would like to consume, but we do have to be done in about 10 minutes.

Mr. REED. I appreciate that. I appreciate the gentlelady yielding. And I appreciate joining my colleagues, fellow freshman members of the Republican class who have come here to Washington, D.C., with the same philosophy that I believe I bring to the table. And that is exactly the point that we have been articulating here tonight. We need to get our fiscal house in order.

So many people ask me why is that so critical to our future? And when I go to my town hall meetings, and I go and talk to my constituents back in New York, I tell them there are two reasons. One, we all know that if you run a business at the debt levels that we run this government at, it will go bankrupt. And we are talking about the bankruptcy of America. That is not acceptable to me. It's not acceptable to my colleagues here tonight. And we're going to work day in and day out to prevent that.

But second, and more in the short term, we need to get our fiscal house in order so that we send a message to all of the world markets that the American market is alive and well. And you can invest your capital, you can invest your millions of dollars back here in America and put people back to work. It's not about creating jobs that are government jobs. It's about creating wealth. It is about creating a private sector that is strong, that is putting people to work day in and day out, putting food on their tables, feeding their families, providing for their education, and giving that way of life that we here have enjoyed to their children, to our grandchildren, and to generations that have not even seen the face of the Earth.

So for those two reasons, it is time that we honor Senator Barack Obama's quote that we need to stop 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. I call on the President to put forth a plan to deal with this problem once and for all.

Mrs. ROBY. I thank the gentleman.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois for such time as he may consume.

Mr. SCHILLING. I would like to thank the gentlelady from Alabama for giving me the opportunity to speak here tonight.

As a small businessman and a new Member of Congress, I believe that the people did not send us here to raise the debt limit without a clear path to fix this huge mess that we have. It's an honor to represent the people of the 17th District in Illinois. It's with great honor, of course, that even greater expectations come.

Future generations are depending upon us to get it right. You know, they didn't send us here to bury our heads in the sand and continue this path that we have been going on.

As one of the new 87 freshmen who was sent here to deliver a message from America that enough is enough, when it comes to the failed policies of the past, I will continue to persuade my colleagues that we must get this under control. We reached the statutory debt limit on May 16 of 2011. Secretary Geithner has said we have enough borrowing to get us through August 2 of 2011. After that, if the debt ceiling is not raised, then America will default on its obligations.

Secretary Geithner has said that it would be insane not to raise the debt limit. I believe the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The debt limit has been raised 51 times since 1978. Today we are facing a crushing debt of more than $14 trillion. The insanity must stop here.

Mrs. ROBY. I thank the gentleman.

I now yield to the gentleman from Arkansas as much time as he may consume.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you very much. I am glad to be able to join you here on the floor tonight to ultimately talk about jobs. I have heard some folks mention debt and some other issues, but it all relates to jobs.

I hear folks from the other side of the aisle say, when are you going to have a jobs bill? And what I try to convey to my constituents and to my colleagues here is that when we are talking about the debt and getting our spending under control, we are talking about jobs.

This country has not seen job loss like we will see if we have a debt crisis. And if we want to be the country like many of us grew up in, a country that is innovative and leads the world in technology and advancement, then we have to deal with our crushing debt.

What has been striking on the issue of the debt here tonight is I have been listening to colleagues from the other side of the aisle and I have heard about all these plans. I have heard about plans to pay down the debt, plans to deal with the deficit. I have heard about their Medicare plan.

The bottom line is, they don't have a plan. This President, in the Senate controlled by Senator Reid, they don't have a plan. They don't have a plan for Medicare, they don't have a plan in the form of a budget, they don't have a plan to get the debt under control, they don't have a plan. Their only plan is to let the House lead.

They will let us be bold while they are politically timid. They have no plan. It would be easy to have a debate between our plan and their plan, but they don't have a plan.

So we are left with a situation, for example, on Medicare, something that we want to preserve, something that is a big driver of our debt. On the issue of Medicare, the other side of the aisle likes to compare our plan, which reforms and saves Medicare, they like to compare our plan to the current plan.

Well, that's fiscal fantasy, folks. Why? Because the current plan goes away. The status quo goes bankrupt. So the idea that they can adopt the current plan status quo as their plan is nonsense; it's nonsense. We see it with Medicare; we see it with the debt.

I, like my colleagues here, simply call on the Democrats and the President to propose something, something that we can discuss, something that addresses our problems. I can tell you, I can only speak for me and my constituents, but unless we see some serious structural changes to the spending, the out-of-control spending in this town, the ``no'' that I voted on raising the debt limit tonight will be the same ``no'' over and over again until this President and the Senate get their act together and give us a real plan.

Mrs. ROBY. I thank the gentleman.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. DOLD. I appreciate the gentlelady for yielding.

I was just struck by something that the gentleman from Arkansas said. It is about jobs and that I think is something that we focused on here this evening, but there are 29 million small businesses in our Nation. And the thing that I hear from small businesses and businesses all around my district is the uncertainty. Uncertainty out there is causing, in essence, paralyzing businesses and preventing them from moving forward. If we can create an environment here in Washington that allows half of those companies to create a single job, think about the job growth we will have then.

I am just wondering if the gentlemen from Arkansas or from Colorado or the gentlelady from Alabama has heard some of the same things back in their districts about uncertainty.

Mrs. ROBY. Absolutely. You know, everywhere we go we hear about this job-killing legislation that is keeping small business owners, even those that have the ability to create jobs, fearful to do so because they don't know which regulation they are going to be hit from next, what legislation we are going to pass to find out what's in it is coming their way. So I hear it all the time. It is stifling to our economy.

We need to create, we need to make sure that we are creating an environment so that the private sector can create the jobs and not rely on the government.

I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. You make a good point. I

tell you, the stark contrast between what we are talking about here and from what I hear on the other side of the aisle is this: our colleagues, our Democrat colleagues talk about the government creating jobs. They say we need to create jobs.

I understand, and I think we understand that the private sector creates jobs. Small businesses create jobs. Individuals create jobs. People pursuing their dreams and exercising economic freedom, that's who creates jobs.

It's our job to help create an environment where individuals and businesses can flourish and continue to lead the world. It is not the government's job to create jobs. We are here to create an environment for businesses and individuals and small businesses so they can flourish.

Mrs. ROBY. I will now yield to the gentleman from New York, and then we're going to wrap this up.

Mr. REED. I thank the gentlelady from Alabama.

I was struck by something my colleague from Arkansas said about a plan. Let's be clear about the proposed plans that have been allegedly floated by our President up to this date and what we voted on today.

You know, we get knocked a lot for not engaging in a bipartisan practice, but let's be clear what the record showed and in this Chamber today and in the Senate last week. President Obama put forth and requested a clean debt ceiling, an unconditional debt ceiling, just raise it $2 trillion.

Bipartisan support tonight rejected that proposal. That's the status quo proposal that we can no longer afford. Last week, President Obama's budget, 97-0 in the Senate, was soundly rejected. I believe President Obama's quote from 2006 is completely accurate. His words predicted exactly where he is at. America has a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

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