Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOWDY. I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding and for his leadership on this and so many other issues.

Mr. Speaker, the President says he wants to do a big deal. He says he wants to do something transformative. He wants to do something that will echo in eternity. And he's willing to risk his political career to get it done.

History tells a very different story. In 2006, Senator Barack Obama joined 47 Senate Democrats in voting "no'' on raising the debt ceiling. This, the first post-partisan President, cast a decidedly partisan vote in joining every single one of his colleagues in saying "no'' to raising the debt ceiling. Did calamitous have a different definition in 2006? Was reneging on your debt somehow more palatable in 2006? Was the apocalypse not blowing in 2006? In 2007 and 2008, when again this body voted on raising the debt ceiling, the President, who was a Senator from Illinois, was absent for both votes.

Fast forward to President Obama. He has proposed a budget that raises this debt by trillions of dollars, with no spending cuts, and then he famously invites our colleague, Paul Ryan, to the White House to lecture him on sensitivity and entitlement reform while offering absolutely no plan whatsoever on his own for entitlement reform. Then he said he wanted a clean debt ceiling increase, free from the nuisances of spending cuts, entitlement reform, and personal responsibility.

How do you go from voting "no'' on raising the debt ceiling to saying you want a clean increase in the debt, to now saying you want to do something transformative that echoes in eternity?

Mr. Speaker, the President says he has a plan. Forgive our skepticism. I'd like to see the plan. I prefer cut, cap, and balance over punt, pass, and kick.

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