George Voinovich: “I rise to speak on the Securing America's Future Economy Commission Act, which I am introducing today. I ask unanimous…”

“I rise to speak on the Securing America's Future Economy Commission Act, which I am introducing today. I ask unanimous consent that my statement and bill be printed in the Record. This legislation stems from the need to address our Nation's current and future fiscal health. The fact is, we are in dire straits. In the simplest terms, the Federal Government continues to spend more than it takes in. In case anyone has forgotten, the deficit for fiscal year 2005 was $318 billion--the third largest deficit in our Nation's history. If we were to take out the Social Security surplus, the deficit would be nearly $500 billion. And if we were to use accrual accounting, the accounting method used by American businesses, the deficit would be approximately $760 billion. These deficits only continue to add to our national debt. When I came to the Senate in 1999, the national debt stood at $5.6 trillion. Since then, it has increased 50 percent to $8.4 trillion. As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, GDP, our national debt has grown from being 58 percent of GDP at the end of 2000 to an estimated 66.1 percent of GDP by the end of 2006. In fact, the debt continues to grow so quickly that the House of Representative's fiscal year 2007 budget resolution raises the Federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion. This is only a few months after Congress was forced to raise the debt ceiling.…”