The Budget, Our Debt and the Deficit

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Let me first thank you for bringing us together tonight to talk about such an important issue. The news recently has been full of pictures of the G-20 meeting, where the leaders from around the world got together to speak about the economic situation in the world.

And it was rather, I thought, ironic that you had on one side the Canadian leader, plus many European Union leaders, talking about how we have to control spending, we have to control debt and how the world economies are going, frankly, are on a path towards not being sustainable. And on the other side, pretty much alone, you have the President of the United States, who continues to insist that we need to spend more money and borrow more money in order to have the economy prosper.

Now, we know how well that has worked so far. Think about it. We had the TARP bailout of Wall Street. We had then the so-called ``stimulus.'' And the gentlewoman from Wyoming just spoke about the results of that almost trillion-dollar borrowed money that the Federal Government took from the American people, from small businesses, from families, to spend it because they said they promised that it was going to fix the employment situation and that unemployment would be capped at 8 percent and 3-plus million jobs will be created.

And we know that the only place where jobs have been created, as the gentlewoman just said and showed so eloquently, was government jobs. Yet, private sector jobs have not been created. But wealth has been taken away from families and small businesses in order to spend and misspend and to waste that money.

And then we had the second part of TARP, the second expenditure of TARP, and then we had the Son of Stimulus. We're continuously told that, Well, yes, that's really helping, and it's worked.

You know, how do you know if what you're being told isn't quite accurate? Well, just listen to what they're telling you. The President himself stated that if the so-called stimulus were to pass that unemployment would be capped at 8 percent, would not reach 8 percent. Those are his numbers. That was his benchmark--not mine, not yours, not the gentleman from Pennsylvania's benchmark. That benchmark was established by the President. He established what he said was going to happen, and yet we all know what has happened.

Unemployment is way above that. Job creation has been dismal. We've actually lost millions of jobs after the stimulus passed, and yet we see our President in front of the world saying, number one, it's worked and that we need to do more of it, as if we're living in some weird time warp. Does he and does the leadership in the House not understand what's going on in Europe right now with Greece, for example, where Greece has had to get bailed out by the European Union because, frankly, their debt is so high and their expenditures are so out of control that they've had to bail them out? Do they not understand what's going on in Spain now where everybody says that they are the next one to, frankly, implode economically because their debt is so high, because their expenditures are so high?

It is my understanding that the President of the United States even called Spain and said, Hey, you have to cut back on expenses. And yet here he pretends as if we live in Disney World, that you can continue to spend people's money--let me restate that. It's not people's money anymore. It's borrowed money--and that there are no consequences, that it's fake, that the words of just about every economist that says this is unsustainable are just, frankly, not true.

So, by the way, if that were not bad enough, where have they spent this hard-earned money? Where has it gone? Now, if I were to tell you all that--I don't know. Pick your government. Pick a government, a neighboring government. I don't know, Guatemala, Argentina, wherever you want. If we said, Hey, you know, the administration there just established a Web page, and the Web page cost $5 million. We would all go, Oh, my gosh. What have they done? There's a word for that. It's not ``waste.'' I mean, if that happened someplace else, we don't call it waste. We call it corruption. If we see that some government, some President has created a Web page for $5 million, we'd look at it and we'd say, Something strange is happening here.

The Web page that was created by this administration to track the failed stimulus didn't cost $1 million. No, it didn't cost $5 million. The Web page cost $18 million. Now, you know, I ask the American people, Have you ever heard of an $18 million Web page? Does that sound like efficient use of your money? Does that make any sense? So you are wondering why it hasn't created jobs. Well, because the money has been wasted. And I am not going to use another word for it, a word that we would use if it happened someplace else. I'm not going to use the word ``corruption'' for an $18 million Web page. But it sure smells funny, and it sure shows you that the money is wasted, and it sure demonstrates why it has not created jobs. And we could go on and on and on and on about money going to campaign consultants, stimulus money going to campaign consultants.

And what is the answer? Is the answer of this administration, of this Congress, ``Let's take a step back. Let's look at what we've done. It hasn't worked. Our debt is unsustainable, and everybody has told us that''? When Europe tells us that our debt is unsustainable, that becomes pretty evident and pretty obvious; right? When they tell you that we're spending too much money, the Europeans, for God's sake, tell the United States that we're spending too much money and we are incurring too much debt, that should make us at least take a step back. Let's take a step back and figure out it hasn't worked. The administration has spent all this money. They said it would keep unemployment at 8 percent. It is now way over that. They said it was going to create 3.5 million jobs. That hasn't happened. The only jobs created were bureaucrats in Washington.

So you would think they would take a step back and say, okay, the American people have suffered enough through this irresponsibility. Let's do something different. No. They continue to do more of the same thing. They continue to double up, because it's not their money. It's the American people's money. So they say, Let's just double up on it. We wasted all this money and it hasn't created jobs? We're going to do more. We're going to waste more of the taxpayers' money. It is, frankly, totally unacceptable.

I just want to throw out some numbers, and I will yield back. I want to thank the gentlewoman for allowing me to have this time.

What's the problem here? Look, in 2010, the President's budget, what he submitted--and, by the way, Congress did--was $3.6 trillion. That's the budget that was submitted. Here's the problem: The revenues for that year were $2.4 trillion. It doesn't require a NASA rocket scientist to understand what the problem is. But that wasn't enough. This year, the President submitted a budget--the President did--and he submitted a budget that's $3.8 trillion. But here lies the problem: The estimated revenues for this year--remember, $3.8 trillion. That's what he submitted after he did it last year again, and all of the reasons why last year was a special year and all the past sins and that's why it had to be done last year. Well, now, this year he submits a budget for $3.8 trillion. But what are the revenue estimates for this year? $2.6 trillion.

Now, if that was a company or if someone did that at home, they would be bankrupt. And that's precisely where this is leading the greatest, most prosperous, most generous, most decent nation on this planet. And that's not acceptable. That's why even the Europeans are saying, What are you guys doing? And not only are they doing this, but we have results to show how well it's worked. It has been a dismal failure--not because I say so. Because the President established the benchmark, and under the President's own benchmark it has been a dismal failure. There are consequences of this misspending of money. There are consequences for this debt.

I just want to leave you with one last number. Just in the interest payments alone--not the principal--to pay the interest payments by the year 2020, the American people are going to have to pay almost $1 trillion just in interest payments. That's the President's budget. That's what they claim is going to be the expensing, the cost, the numbers that are going to have to be paid by the American people just to pay the debt that they are incurring.

You know, I want to thank the gentlewoman for bringing us here today to explain, to talk about, this is not monopoly money. This is real. This is our children's and our grandchildren's future. This is the future of this, the greatest country on Earth. And we can take a step back. We can salvage the situation. We can create jobs. We can stop this path towards bankruptcy. But we need to do so now.

And the reason the Democratic Congress is not even going to present, it seems, not even going to try to attempt, it looks like, to pass a budget out of the House is because these numbers--they're not my numbers, they're the official numbers--and they must be embarrassed to show the American people the truth so, therefore, they're not even going to present a budget.

I haven't been here that long. But, in the time that I've been here, that's never happened. It's never happened. Not even attempting to present a budget because the numbers are so dismal under their watch. This is not inherited. Under their watch the numbers are so dismal that they don't even want the American people to see those numbers.

Well, you know something? The American people are wise. They're not dumb. You can try to hide the facts, but the facts are there. You can try to not show the numbers, but the numbers are there.

So, again, I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak to the American people, directly to the American people, as to what their government is doing with their money, with their children's money, with their grandchildren's money and with the future of our Nation. I'm sure that we'll be able to reverse it, but we need to start now.

Thank you. I yield back.

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Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I think you just brought up, frankly, something that's very scary, should be very scary to us. And you mentioned what happened there is--that's how it started in Europe. That's how it started in Greece, and eventually it basically started to collapse, which is why then the European Union had to bail out Greece, and then they had to talk to Spain about not spending any money, about cutting their spending, et cetera. And so when we talk about how--and not us, when economists--around the country, now even around the world, and leaders around the world say it's unsustainable, it's because that's where we are headed if we don't change that.

But you know what adds insult to injury to me?

I represent the great State of Florida. I will tell you it's probably the greatest place to live in the entire planet.

We have a lot of senior citizens, many of whom depend on Medicare for example. Well, we know that Medicare will be going insolvent in I think just, you know, a handful of years--2016 or 2017 is when it goes insolvent. So here we are borrowing and borrowing and spending and spending and borrowing and spending. Are we using that money? Is the Speaker and is the President using that money to shore up Medicare for our senior citizens? Are they using that money to shore up Social Security for our seniors?

No. They've now created a new entitlement that we know we can call the mother of all entitlements. So not only are they not solving the problems that we have, they're creating new entitlements, which is going to add to the fiscal problem that we're already in. So not only are they borrowing and spending more, they're doing so recklessly, while not dealing with the issues that we all know, everybody knows we have to deal with. So that just adds insult to injury.

And when you mentioned that about remember what happened in Greece, it got to the point where then the market said, we're not going to--your debt is so high that we're not going to buy it unless you pay much higher interest rates. And it gets to the point where then it becomes this vicious circle where all you're doing is paying interest, you know, like people get into with credit cards. This administration, this President are doing exactly the same thing to our country. And the American people are starting to understand.

World leaders are starting to tell the United States, slow down. What are you guys doing?

And yet, this Congress, and our President who, I guess--I don't know--I just don't exactly understand what they're looking at. They're looking at the same numbers that we're looking at. And the things they've done have been dismal failures. I mentioned obviously the stimulus.

But let's talk about one more. How about the billions of dollars that the taxpayers dished out to the car companies, automobile companies? Remember, in order for them to not go bankrupt, all right? So what happened? They didn't go bankrupt? No, they actually did go bankrupt, but after the taxpayer, who's struggling, by the way, and they're losing their jobs, and there's no Federal bailout for them, and they're losing their homes, and there's no Federal bailout for them. No, no, no. Take their money to bail out the auto companies because we can't let them go bankrupt. And they went bankrupt anyway.

So I don't know. That's not a failure? Only in Washington do you say I'm going to spend all this money and it's going to stop unemployment from going above 8 percent, and then it goes way above 8 percent and they don't call that failure. Only in Washington. Only in Washington do you take taxpayers' hard-earned money, say that you are going to stop these auto companies from going bankrupt, and then they go bankrupt anyway and you say, oh, we got to do more of the same. It's nuts. It's insane.

But everybody has realized, everybody, including world leaders--again I repeat myself, and then I will stop--but when you have world leaders of France saying to the United States of America you are borrowing and spending too much, if that's not a wake-up call, then what will it take for this President and this Congress to wake up? And you are right, that's why they are not presenting a budget, because their numbers are frankly unsustainable. The American people would go ballistic if they saw their proposals. But you know something? The American people know what's going on anyway. Thank you for your time.

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