Reverse the Curse

Floor Speech

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Mr. FALLON. Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend from West Texas for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, time and again, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have put our country in a financial choke hold.

Mr. Speaker, they believe that the only solution to fix any of our country's problems is to spend and to spend, and you know what, and spend even more.

Well, I have to ask: Where has that got us?

I will tell you where. On a road to financial oblivion.

Our Federal debt is approaching $31 trillion; that is 31,000 billions. Our annual deficit was nearly $3 trillion in FY21, and I expect a similar number at the end of FY22.

We are experiencing a 40-year high in inflation precisely because of this runaway, reckless, and highly irresponsible government spending.

We are seeing higher prices that are disproportionately harming the working poor and the middle class. And Americans are tired of spending over half their hard-earned paychecks just to pay for the basic necessities of life.

This body never has had a revenue problem. This body has a spending problem. It is an important distinction. And why?

You know, a school district can't spend more than it takes in. A city can't. A county can't. A State can't. But the Federal Government does because they have a printing press down the street.

So what can be done? Because to be frank, when you talk to people at home, they are starting to lose hope. Time is running out. And when you become addicted to deficit spending and, essentially, are enjoying a dollar's worth of goods and services and it is costing you 75 cents, it is hard to wean yourself off of that.

In effect, what Washington has done for far too long is mortgage our children's future for political expediency and benefit now, never considering what will become of our future generations.

So what is the answer?

Actually, it is pretty simple. We should only spend what we take in, period, end of story, full stop.

Mr. Speaker, 27 years ago this very legislation, a balanced budget amendment, passed out of this Chamber and exceeded the two-thirds threshold, believe it or not. It only failed in the Senate by one vote, and it would have then been sent to the States.

So we must tackle this issue, Mr. Speaker, here and now. It shouldn't be partisan. This is math. This isn't a Democratic solution, and this isn't a Republican solution. This is an American solution moving forward.

We can't tackle it tomorrow, and we can't tackle it next year. We can't kick the can down the road. We need to tackle it now, today, this very second.

Mr. Speaker, $31 trillion is a staggering debt that will eventually, and with absolute certainty, lead to American financial catastrophe. But we can stop it. We just need to work together and inject fiscal sanity into this debate. We owe it to our children, we owe it to our country, and we owe it to our future.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Arrington for letting me share remarks.

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