Increasing the Public Debt Limit

INCREASING THE PUBLIC DEBT LIMIT -- (House of Representatives - November 18, 2004)

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the gentleman from Tennessee that Lewis Carroll is writing the speeches that are being given on this legislation: Up is down, black is white, good is bad, and bad is good.

Dick Armey said Republicans control this town, and you have for 4 years. Republicans control it. This House, the Senate, and the White House. Not a nickel is spent because Democrats vote on it. It is all your spending that you are talking about. All your spending.

The immoral, intellectually bankrupt fiscal policies that we have been pursuing for the last 4 years resulted in this request for this gargantuan increase on the debt on the head of every American, young and old.

Bill Clinton was President of the United States and, in 1998, no increase in the debt; 1999, no increase in the debt; 2000, no increase in the debt; 2001, no increase in the debt. Not until the Republican fiscal policies were adopted did this country start to sink deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. From less than $6 trillion, in 42 months you have taken this country another $2 trillion in debt.

Let us talk of moral values in America. Let us talk of squandering the public resources of a $5.6 trillion surplus that President George Bush said was available when he spoke to this Congress in February, 2001. We have some fiscal conservatives, they say, on this floor and they say spending is the problem. Why have they not stopped it for 4 years?

They say there has been terrorism. I agree. There has been a war. We had a war under President Clinton, Members recall, one the other side of the aisle was not enthusiastic about, but we lost very few people, and the despot who committed genocide against the Bosnian people is now locked in The Hague.

I tell my friends, this is the right thing to do if we adopt the motion to instruct that will be offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the most fiscally responsible Member of this body. Increase it for a short time. The United States cannot welch on its debt. We must pay our debt, but fiscal responsibility ought to be adopted by the majority that have control to do so.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BRADY of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I am prepared to pay for the public works projects that I secure. The public works project that this side secured pales into insignificance beside the public works projects that you get for your Members on your side of the aisle, 17 times as much as we did, and you came here saying we are against pork. Seventeen times, my friend. Seventeen times is the pork in your bills.