On the recordFebruary 11, 2016
I thank the gentleman from Indiana for introducing the amendment. I know it is in good faith. I am looking at my favorite chart since I have been here about what causes the public debt. I hear all of these folks talking about it--in both parties running for President--about the public debt, and I don't know what public debt they are talking about, to be very frank with you. Let me tell you what the public debt is all about that we are talking about: $19 trillion and rising. Most of the debt that we carry from year to year--and we have to pay interest on that debt, as you well know--comes from either the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 combined with the two wars we never paid for. I mean, those are the facts. I didn't make them up. So we have very little in the discretionary part of the budget. It is only 30 percent of the total budget. We do have a solution to part of the problem in that we extended Medicare for one of those mandatory costs for 12 years. That is what the ACA did. I am telling you we ought to learn what the facts are, and then maybe we would reduce the number of bills as well as the amendments. The Acting CHAIR. All Members are reminded to address their remarks to the Chair.
