Austin Scott: “I am so proud to stand in this well as a Democrat, and I hope that the people of this country are taking good notes…”

“I am so proud to stand in this well as a Democrat, and I hope that the people of this country are taking good notes tonight, because it is the Democrats in this Congress who are standing up for sound fiscal responsibility. I think it is very important for us to realize and never forget that it was President Clinton who left a huge surplus that has been squandered in these last 4 years. Here are the facts. This is the third time in 3 years that the debt limit has been increased for a grand total of more than $2 trillion. The last hike was nearly $1 trillion. But it took less than 18 months for the government to hit the new rate ceiling. By way of comparison, the entire Federal debt in 1980 was just less than $1 trillion. We are on a runaway train without any brakes. And all we are asking for is pay-as-you-go so that we can be responsible. I will tell you really just how irresponsible you are being on the other side of the aisle. Do you realize that 90 percent of this new debt that you are creating is being purchased by foreign countries and foreign interests? And just the amount of the interest that we are paying on it, just the cost of borrowing this money from these countries accounts for more than 10 percent of all of Federal spending, which is more than what we are spending on our own homeland security. You talk about irresponsibility.…”