On the recordMarch 4, 2010
I am going to spend a few minutes talking about an amendment I have, No. 3358, which has already been pending, but I think, first, it is important for us to know that last year we borrowed $4 billion a day in this country. Mr. President, 43 cents out of every $1 the country spent at the Federal level was borrowed. What does that mean? What that means is that over the next 10 years we are going to be paying $4.5 trillion in interest on the additional $9.8 trillion we are projected to spend that we do not have. It was less than 3 weeks ago that this body passed a statute. Here is what the statute said: If you do not have the money to spend, then you have to cut something if you are going to spend new money. As of last night, in the 3 weeks since we passed that bill, this body has said: That does not count. Time out. We are going to spend $120 billion over the next 10 years, but we are not going to pay for it. That is why when that bill came through, to tell America we were going to finally get some fiscal discipline, we, as a minority, voted against it, because we knew it was not true. As a matter of fact, one of our newer Members wanted to vote for it, as I had in the past when I first got here because I believed what it meant was real. The fact is, the pay-go rules are a ruse. Pay-go means: American people, you pay, and we will go spend it.
