James Norton: “Mr. Speaker, the full faith and credit of the United States is not seriously at issue here. What is at issue is what we…”

“Mr. Speaker, the full faith and credit of the United States is not seriously at issue here. What is at issue is what we do not hear a lot about anymore. We do not hear the other side saying we can grow our way out of this debt. We do see the danger signs, the decline of the dollar, the rise in debt purchased by foreigners. How can we plunge ourselves back into debt so quickly? As President Clinton dedicates his library, I cannot help remember the halcyon days of surplus where the President imposed pay-as-you-go discipline. We can do this ourselves. Postponing a vote on the debt limit to get through an election is pathetically transparent. The moral bankruptcy of that postponement is deepened by the failure to even make a promise on PAYGO during this debate. Unless we move, this generation will be remembered as the generation that had a party at the expense of their grandchildren, so selfish that they gave themselves a tax cut, robbed their children's Social Security, and then charged it straight away to them. Let us do better than that. That is the very definition of a national moral issue.”