The Debt Ceiling

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, a little later today, I will sit down with President Obama to discuss his request to raise the Nation's debt ceiling. When I do, I intend to make a request of my own. I intend to ask the President what he is prepared to do, outside of raising taxes, about the massive deficits and debt that have accumulated on his watch. I will tell him what Republicans are looking for in this debate: to cut spending now, cap runaway spending in the future, save our entitlements from bankruptcy, and get our economy moving. I will tell him the truth about requests by some in his party that we increase spending and raise taxes as a way of solving the debt and jobs crisis that precipitated the President's request to raise the debt limit in the first place: Not only are they counterproductive from the standpoint of an economic recovery, they are also politically impossible since Republicans oppose tax hikes and Democrats have already shown they will not raise taxes in a down economy either.

Let's start by taking both proposals off the table and focus on what can actually pass Congress and what will actually spur the private sector in our future and create jobs. Those who are calling for tax hikes as a part of these debt discussions either have amnesia about the fate of similar proposals just 6 months ago when Democrats controlled both Chambers of Congress by very large margins, as well as the White House, or they are acting in bad faith since we all know that including massive job-killing tax hikes would be a poison pill.

Let's move past the tax hikes, talk about what is actually possible, and let's talk about what has and has not worked over the last 2 years. On this second point, this much is clear: If government spending were the answer to an economic slowdown, we would be in a boom time right now. Instead, we are facing record deficits and debt and a seemingly endless stream of bad economic news. Despite massive spending increases by Democrats, millions have lost their jobs.

The problem is that Washington spends too much. That means Democrats are simply going to have to make the kinds of tough choices about Washington's budget that most other Americans have been forced to make about their own budgets over the past couple of years.

Last week, President Obama told a group of people he was prepared to bring down the deficit by trillions of dollars but refused to list any of the ways he was willing to do it. All he did was list the things he refused to cut. This weekend, the President proposed even more deficit-financed spending disguised as what he calls investment. You really cannot have it both ways.

At some point, the President needs to realize that the reason our debt has skyrocketed 35 percent over the last 2 years and that our annual deficit is now three times greater than the highest deficit the previous administration ever ran is that spending has spiraled completely and totally out of control and that the big-government policies of the last 2 years simply have to change.

Consider the failed stimulus bill when Democrats passed it. They said it was a one-time cash infusion that was supposed to keep unemployment below 8 percent. Two years later, with unemployment still hovering around 9 percent, they are saying we need to keep up the stimulus-level spending, despite its obvious failure. Their commitment to spending and tax hikes is so deeply held, it seems they do not even recognize the state of our economy or the fact that the tax-and-spend policies of the past 2 years have made matters worse, and they have to change if they are ever going to get out of the fiscal mess we are in.

Democrats seem to think the solution to our tax crisis is to ask taxpayers and businesses to reward their economic stewardship with even more money to spend as they please. They don't seem to understand that the voters didn't elect dozens of additional Republicans to the House of Representatives last November because they wanted their taxes raised. They sent them to reverse policies that had failed. We have seen the consequences of giving Washington a blank check. It is the reason we are in the mess to begin with.

So my message to the President is quite simple. It is time for Washington to focus on fixing itself. It is time for Washington to take the hit, not the taxpayers.

I yield the floor.

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