Mike Thompson: “Mr. Speaker, last week the Committee on the Budget reported out a budget that failed to address one of the most critical…”

“Mr. Speaker, last week the Committee on the Budget reported out a budget that failed to address one of the most critical problems facing our Nation, and that is our national debt. I offered an amendment in committee that would have included the pay-go rules in that budget, pay-go on both revenue and spending legislation. It was defeated, sadly, on a straight party-line vote. Not one single Republican supported it, not even those who had previously and publicly said that they supported extending pay-go to both revenue and spending. Yesterday I brought the same amendment to the Committee on Rules; and, again, the majority voted against the extension of the pay-go rules. And in doing so, they denied this House the opportunity to debate one of the most successful budget enforcement mechanisms that we have at our disposal. Today we are over $7 trillion in debt. By the chairman's own numbers, we will be over $10.4 trillion in debt by the year 2009. Pay-go would allow us to rein in control over our debt and our deficits. Pay-go would mandate that we actually pay for the legislation that we pass. Pay-go would force the Congress to recognize that there are fiscal consequences to our actions. That is a wake-up call that we desperately need because, lately, Congress has been pretending that there are no consequences. We have been spending more than we have. We have been cutting taxes with abandon.”