Louise Slaughter: “On just the third legislative day after the election we are yet again confronting a need to raise the Nation's debt…”

“On just the third legislative day after the election we are yet again confronting a need to raise the Nation's debt limit. It is interesting that even though this problem has been apparent for months the Republican leadership chose to wait until after the election to bring this issue to the floor, interesting but not at all surprising. Once again, the historic fiscal mismanagement of this Republican Congress and the Bush administration is on display, and, once again, we are reminded that we are passing on a massive, unpaid credit card bill to our children and our grandchildren, and the numbers are staggering. In 2002, the Bush administration came to Congress asking for a debt limit increase of $450 billion. In 2003, they asked for another increase of $984 billion, an unprecedented increase, and this year's request will increase the debt ceiling by another $800 billion. Amazingly, this increase is only expected to last the Treasury 1 year, which means that unless this Congress gets its act together we will be back here next year debating yet another multibillion dollar increase in the national debt limit. In the last 18 months, this Nation's debt has gone up by nearly $1 trillion, $1 trillion.”