Increasing Statutory Limit on the Public Debt
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Unfortunately, this is a serious issue on which serious time has not been allotted because you put this on suspension. This is a serious issue. Our country is in crisis from a fiscal standpoint.
Now I wanted the gentleman to yield because I don't think the gentleman has any idea what the facts are. Eighty-nine percent increase in the debt under Ronald Reagan. He could have vetoed every one of those bills. Under George Bush, 115 percent increase in the debt. Under Bill Clinton, less than 40.
Ladies and gentlemen, this issue is an important issue that is being treated not as an adult. This is not the adult moment of which Speaker Boehner spoke. And you didn't mention that the budget you voted for, I presume, I'm not sure, increased the debt by $1.9 trillion between now and October 1 of this year.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is not an honest debate. This is not an honest proposal. This is a serious issue. TARP was a serious issue, and the American public didn't want to see it passed. And had it not passed, we would have gone into depression. Who said that? George Bush, Hank Paulson, the Republican Secretary of the Treasury, and Ben Bernanke, the Republican appointed head of the Federal Reserve. It was a tough vote.
And so what did we do for America? We came together, Republicans and Democrats, more Democrats supporting the Republican President's request than his own party, to save America from depression.
We need to deal with this issue, ladies and gentlemen, of America seriously, not in 20-minute debates on each side, not as a simplistic suggestion that somehow President Obama caused this. One point three trillion in wars we haven't paid for, a drug prescription bill we haven't paid for, tax cuts that your party voted for--not mine--that we didn't pay for. Should we have tax cuts? That's fine. But we ought to pay for them, not have my great-grandson, who was just born a week ago, pay for it. That's what you're doing.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to vote ``no'' on this. We ought to vote for this. We ought to have a clean bill. And we ought to have both sides coming together and saying America needs this for debts that we have incurred. What I tell town meetings is, it's like you go to Macy's, you take out your credit card, and you charge $200 worth of goods. And then you go home that night, your husband or your wife and you sit down and say, look, we've got too much debt, we need to have a debt limit. Put a $100 debt limit on us. And then Macy's sends you a bill, and you send them back a letter and say, no, I've got a debt limit. It's 100 bucks. So you send them a check for $100. They send back a letter saying, hey, no more credit, and guess what? We're suing you.
This debt limit extension is for what we have already incurred. This debt limit extension vote is about whether or not we are going to pay our bills. But I will tell you this, we'll see how many of your folks vote for paying our bills.
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Mr. HOYER. I'm looking forward to seeing how many of your folks are going to say, yes, we need to pay our bills, America. We need to be a good debtor as well as a good creditor. We're going to see how many of your folks vote. I've got just a sneaking suspicion it's not going to be very many, if any. It's a good demagogue vote, frankly, ladies and gentlemen. And if we vote for it, guess what? Oh, you're for raising the debt limit without any fiscal discipline.
Well, when we were in charge, when the President of the United States wouldn't let you do some of the things you wanted to do, Bill Clinton was there to veto things, we had a surplus for 4 years in a row, and we didn't increase the debt once.
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