Unsustainable, Crippling Federal Deficit and Debt

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUIZENGA. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case), my friend, for yielding time. This is a very important discussion to be having, not just among ourselves, but with the Nation and with the country.

Mr. Speaker, I start by thanking the gentleman not only for his sincere interest in this issue, but our growing friendship, as well. As I tell people back home, so often, you need to have a relationship first to then be able to build trust. When you build that trust, that is when you can go and find those solutions.

I am sure the gentleman has some constituents in Hawaii, much like I have constituents over in Michigan who sometimes say: Why are you even talking to those people? Let's just ignore them.

Well, sorry, folks. We can't do that. That is not reality. We have to deal with our colleagues, and guess what. We have gotten a very special group of people who have said: We realize that we are not going to be able to solve every problem. We are not even going to try to solve every problem, but this is a growing issue and problem for us that we need to focus and concentrate on.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is using this as an opportunity, the same as I will, to discuss some difficult truths about what we are facing and what my constituents back in southwest Michigan and the gentleman's constituents in Hawaii are all dealing with.

Frankly, the size of our national debt is just climbing at an alarming rate. It now exceeds over $35 trillion with a t.

Probably like a lot of our colleagues here, I visit schools and I talk to kids, and I will oftentimes ask them: How many zeroes in a trillion? Usually the first answer is: A lot.

Yes, that is true. I tell these kids: You know what you need to do at some point today? Write down a 1 with 12 zeroes behind it, but then don't start at the left. Start at the right and see what $1,000 looks like, what $100,000 looks like, what $1 million, $10 million, $100 million, and $1 billion looks like, and you still see all these zeroes that you have to keep counting through.

Well, that $35 trillion that we have spent here on the big giant credit card, Uncle Sam's credit card, is actually projected to reach closer to $57 trillion in the next 10 years.

There are consequences to that. There are consequences to that. We can joke around and maybe understand that people aren't aware of what is going on. I have sort of had this running joke in our office that we need to put a big giant debt clock up here in the House Chamber to just remind people.

We have got to go out there and make sure that people understand that what is happening is this debt is crowding out other priorities, so much so that, this year, if projections hold true, we are going to see interest on the debt to exceed our military spending.

Just think of that: Interest on the debt for what we have already spent is going to exceed what we are going to be spending not just on the military but also for every program that touches kids here in this country.

That is more than Medicare. That is more than the military. We have to get serious about this.

I think everybody can understand the concept of having a credit card that has gotten a little too high, and they feel like they have had to use it because of inflation and the things going on. Think about how the interest on your credit card is now outpacing your grocery bill or outpacing your auto loan. How can you possibly function as a family? You can't.

We have to understand the debt that we have delivered here is helping drive some of that inflation. Interest rates that are there, the money that is getting taken away from other programs, is real.

I am the father of some college-aged kids and a small business owner, as you were kind enough to mention. My family is in construction. I am a former realtor. I understand and talk to people on a regular basis about what this means in their lives, and there is a real factor impacting your family, my family, and all of our constituents' families, as well.

In addition to the debt threatening to bankrupt our Nation's promises to seniors, to fueling inflation-causing interest payments, the national debt also slows economic growth. It drives up interest rates and leaves us less prepared for emergencies, whether it is a COVID-like emergency, a military-like emergency, or a natural disaster emergency. Suddenly, these things could plunge our Nation into even more chaos than what it would be normally because we are having these issues.

For these reasons, and with the help of many of our colleagues who are speaking tonight--Mr. Grothman spoke, Mr. Moore is going to be speaking, Mr. Case, and so many others--we are really trying to tackle this with our Bipartisan Fiscal Forum.

My co-chair, Scott Peters, has been a great partner in this, and he and I together introduced H.R. 5779, the Fiscal Commission Act, earlier. That would force our Congress to tackle our national debt by voting on a package of policy recommendations designed to get our Nation's fiscal house in order, both in the short term and in the long term.

As was quoted by Ms. Houlahan earlier, we are looking at real cuts in Social Security. We are looking at real cuts in Medicare. Those should not be acceptable. We have to wrestle this dragon to the ground.

I am proud that our legislation passed the House Budget Committee on a bipartisan basis, but we have a lot more work to do. The purpose of tonight is continuing to raise that awareness with a national audience, not just our colleagues but our constituencies, as well.

We have to make sure that people understand crystal clear how serious this issue is and the real impacts it has, making life less affordable and more difficult on our constituencies, not just in the short term but certainly in the long run for our kids and our grandkids.

I know the Bipartisan Fiscal Forum, with my colleague's leadership and others, stands ready to work with anybody. We will work with anybody who is interested in this.

As has been stated, we may not always agree on the path, but we agree on the destination. That is the important part: making sure that we get to that destination because that really is what we owe our kids and grandkids and future generations of Americans.

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