Increasing The Statutory Limit On The Public Debt

Floor Speech

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Mrs. LUMMIS. Madam Speaker, two points I would like to make. One is this is not the same statutory pay-as-you-go as was in effect in the 1990s. During the years that President Clinton was working with a Republican Congress, they did balance the budget and they did create a surplus, but they did it using a statutory pay-as-you-go mechanism, or perhaps it was a nonstatutory pay-as-you-go mechanism, that actually didn't have as many exemptions as this one does. The fact that we are using a statutory pay-as-you-go terminology that really doesn't limit in any way spending to be paid for is simply disingenuous.

The other point I would like to make is about our debt limit. We don't have to raise the debt limit today, the debt ceiling. What we would have to do is put strict spending caps on ourselves, roll back the budget to fiscal year 2008 levels; we would have to pull in stimulus money, TARP money, and other expenditures that have either been returned to the government or not yet made. And we wouldn't even have to raise this debt ceiling.

So this is an issue of lacking fiscal responsibility. We are in a situation of borrow-as-you-go, not pay-as-you-go.

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