Deborah Koff Ross: “Mr. Speaker, as you walk the Halls of Congress, you will notice these Blue Dog Coalition posters along the hallways…”

“Mr. Speaker, as you walk the Halls of Congress, you will notice these Blue Dog Coalition posters along the hallways which signify that you are walking by the door to an office of a fellow Blue Dog Member. And the reason you will find these posters scattered across the Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn House Office Buildings is because we are committed to restoring common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government. And it is important to us, Mr. Speaker, that we remind every Member of Congress, as well as the general public that walk these Halls, that our Nation is in debt. In fact, the U.S. national debt, as of today, is $8,721,415,192,294. And we ran out of room on the poster, Mr. Speaker, but 43 cents. Our national debt, $8,721,415,192,294.43. That is a big number. What does it mean? Well, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you what it means. For every man, woman and child living in America, including those children being born today, their share of the national debt is $29,093.20. It is what we refer to as the debt tax, D-E-B-T. That is one tax that cannot be cut, that cannot go away until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order. Why is it important? Because our Nation is borrowing about $1 billion a day. But, Mr. Speaker, before we borrow $1 billion a day, we are going to spend a half a billion dollars paying interest on the debt we have already got.”