Bill Nelson: “I rise to speak about the depleted condition of our national economy and what we ought to do. It is timely to point out…”

“I rise to speak about the depleted condition of our national economy and what we ought to do. It is timely to point out that next week this Chamber, the U.S. Senate, will consider legislation raising the debt limit; that is, the limit set by law under which the Federal Government can borrow money that is a debt obligation of the United States. That debt limit is approximately $6.3 trillion. Next week, we will consider the House bill which has been sent to us to raise that by the largest amount ever in the history of the Union, almost $1 trillion. Specifically, $984 billion will be the vote that we will cast next week to raise the debt limit. The Federal Government has to pay its obligations. So by law we have to raise the debt limit so that the Federal Government can pay its obligations. But it is illustrative of the fact that the national debt is growing larger and larger, and we are adopting fiscal policies that add to that national debt each year by increasing the deficit financing that we engage in by the budgets we adopt and then all of the legislation with which we implement those budgets--the tax cuts, the spending bills, financing the war, all of those necessary expenditures. But a fiscal policy has been advocated by the White House, one of dropping off over the next 10 years tax revenues by some $720 billion.”