Roy Blunt: “conversations continue today about exactly how we are going to meet the financial obligations our country faces. A…”

“conversations continue today about exactly how we are going to meet the financial obligations our country faces. A fundamental question on hand seems to be do we borrow more and spend more or do we make the serious decisions that will get our Nation back on sound financial footing. Today, our national debt stands at over $14 trillion. Unemployment continues to rise, with more than 14 million Americans out of work now, and the government continues to spend more money than it collects, or that I believe it should collect. As the cochairs of the President's own fiscal commission have warned, if we fail to take swift action, the United States faces, according to them, the most predictable economic crisis in history. A quote attributed to many people, including my fellow Missourian Mark Twain, would be that it is hard to make predictions, especially when you are talking about the future. But the easiest to predict is demographics. If you know how many people are here now and have all the other demographic information you need, you should be able to figure out what the population is going to look like. As the population gets older, our programs for seniors will cost more. At his news conference yesterday, President Obama was asked about Social Security reform. He said, in a statement that I didn't quite understand, that Social Security is not the source of our deficit problem.…”