Mike Levin: “I cannot support raising the limit on our national debt to $8.184 trillion without taking other steps to restore fiscal…”

“I cannot support raising the limit on our national debt to $8.184 trillion without taking other steps to restore fiscal responsibility. The fact that this is the third debt increase in three years highlights the irresponsibility of the fiscal policies of this administration. These policies have taken the nation from two years of record surplus--when we were paying down our debt--to this administration's record deficits and debt. A crippling burden is being passed to our children and grandchildren, and the economic security of our nation is threatened as a result. The three recent increases in the debt limit reflect an astounding increase of more than $2.2 trillion. And unless we make a significant change in our fiscal policies, the outlook for avoiding future increases doesn't look any brighter. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, forecasts that our gross Federal debt, which includes debt the Government owes to the public plus funds owed to federal trust funds like Social Security and Medicare, will climb from its 2003 level of $6.8 trillion to $13.3 trillion in 2014. And this shocking estimate doesn't even include the costs of continued military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that we all know are coming. Nor does it take into account the substantial cost of continuing to provide relief for middle-class families from the alternative minimum tax, which, when applied to them, produces totally unfair results.”