National Debt

Floor Speech

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Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call upon my colleagues to join me in addressing our Nation's rising debt. As of this week, our national debt is over $21 trillion, with a T. When we allocate that to each man, woman, and child, it is $64,600--Mr. Speaker, $64,600 for every man, woman, and child.

We are this far in debt because of irresponsible governing and a lack of political courage, regardless of which party has been in control in recent years.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its long-term budget outlook last month. It showed that the Federal debt held by the public will approach 100 percent of our gross domestic product within the next 10 years if we keep heading down this path.

Sadly, this Congress has chosen to continue this irresponsible, unsustainable fiscal course. It is irresponsible.

The tax cut legislation that our Republican colleagues rammed through Congress last December is projected to add over $1.45 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years and $2.2 trillion to our national debt. Some estimate that it will even be more. This is unsustainable.

That is an additional $2.2 trillion that our children will have to pay unless we do something different. We cannot ask future generations to carry the weight of our shortsighted decisions and political cowardice. Not only is it unfair, but it is just plain wrong.

Yes, reining in our spending will be hard. It is always hard and difficult to make choices. We will get attacked by other political organizations and interest groups who dislike or disagree with our choices, but that is why we are here.

This happened in 2012, when the House had the opportunity to address the rising debt and deficit and supported a budget resolution by my colleague and good friend Congressman Jim Cooper from Tennessee. The resolution was similar to the recommendations made by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission, and it would have reduced our debt by over $4 trillion over 10 years. It would just start to bend the curve. I stood with Congressman Cooper and 36 other House Members who supported the resolution, and a lot of groups attacked us.

President Kennedy, many years ago, wrote a book called ``Profiles in Courage,'' in which he wrote of individual Members of Congress who made politically tough choices. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of those political profiles in courage in Congress these days, sadly.

We were sent here to serve the American people, even when faced with difficult choices. We are not sent here to do the easy thing. We are sent here to try to do the right thing and to come together in a bipartisan fashion. That is the only way you are going to get these things done.

We must find the political courage to make the tough choices and create smart and fiscally responsible policies that will have real and lasting effects in reducing our national debt. This will require, again, that Democrats and Republicans work together, which is, in itself, sadly, too often in rare supply these days.

But if we don't put our partisan bickering and electoral fears aside long enough to do what is right for America, then when will we?

If we don't make decisions now to get the Nation's fiscal House in order, the programs on which Americans rely--important programs that most of us support like Social Security, like Medicare--will be impacted.

Mr. Speaker, on this day in 1974, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act became law. Forty-four years ago, the 93rd Congress came together to pass this law to strengthen our budget authority and to increase the capacity to make informed and independent decisions regarding America's budget to, in essence, put our fiscal house in order.

I stand here today, 44 years later, calling on the 115th Congress to use that information and capacity that we now have to make these difficult choices and have the political courage to put our Nation's fiscal house back on a responsible path. It is what our country needs; it is part of America's future; and, my fellow Americans, it is the right thing to do.

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