The Economy

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, with a Democratic President in the White House, Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, and Democrats controlling the Senate, those on the left have every arrow in the quiver they need to raise the debt limit. It is their sole responsibility. They own this. It is also their responsibility, having control of all the levers of government, to ensure that government does not shut down next Thursday at midnight.

As you have already heard from my colleagues here today, we Republicans are united in the fact that we will not assist in passing another reckless, Big Government, socialism package designed to reshape the Nation and make Americans more dependent on the government from the moment they are born to the moment they die.

FDR once warned of a government dependency when he said that ``continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.''

As elected officials, we are supposed to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We are supposed to leave this country in better shape for our children and grandchildren. But the Democrats' tax-and-spending spree accomplishes neither of these things and, in fact, further promulgates the government dependency FDR cautioned future generations about.

What is shocking is that in just one generation the national debt has soared from $5 trillion to more than $28 trillion. Think about that for a second. In the first 225 years of our Nation's history, the national debt was approximately $5 trillion. In the last 20 years, we have increased it by nearly another $25 trillion, including accumulating more than $7 trillion in just the past 2 years.

Now, I said this before, but, folks, grab your wallets. Grab your wallets because the bill they want to pass for reconciliation is going to include massive spending that will put heavy debt on our country. It is going to raise your taxes. It is going to cause Medicare to run out in 2 years. And it is going to continue to drive up the cost of living.

The inflation we are seeing now is a double whammy. You have less money to spend, and the things you are able to buy cost more. It is hurting every hard-working American, but none more than our seniors and young families living paycheck to paycheck.

This looming government shutdown is just another crisis created by this administration. They created a crisis at our southern border, in Afghanistan, with a labor shortage, and now on the pocketbooks of Americans with a multitrillion-dollar socialist spending package.

While it is true America has seen a number of horrendous financial crises before, none have so quickly developed as the pending fiscal crisis President Biden created with the trillions of dollars' worth of reckless spending and reckless taxing in just the first 9 months of control.

And Democrats are now pointing fingers at Republicans, claiming that by refusing to go along with their out-of-control spending and joining them to increase the debt limit, that we are the ones who are being financially irresponsible.

Give me a break. If they were serious about getting our fiscal house in order, they wouldn't be trying to force through another partisan spending bill that is going to bankrupt our country and instead would be pursuing budget reforms and debt reduction proposals in exchange for increasing the debt.

This is not a serious political party, and America needs to recognize that we have a choice between free enterprise capitalism and a socialist economy. Trust me, I heard loud and clear this past weekend during my townhall meetings in the Kansas City area about what Kansans want, and it is not the socialism that has borne out trillions of dollars' worth of spending and taxing that has led to reckless inflation, hampered our economy, and killed our jobs.

Ultimately, if you want strong roads, bridges, high-speed internet, good schools, and a strong military, we need a stronger economy. That should be our focus right now, not continuing down this administration's socialist economic policies.

Pre-COVID, we had the greatest economy in my lifetime. That came about because we lowered people's taxes, we lowered regulations, and we lowered energy prices. We need smart, targeted investments, not radical spending that leaves the country at a disadvantage.

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