John Spratt: “reclaiming my time, to wrap it up, looking back, we started off talking about the deficit and accumulation of debt. Here…”

“reclaiming my time, to wrap it up, looking back, we started off talking about the deficit and accumulation of debt. Here is what we have accomplished, this Congress and this administration, in 3 years: The first year, instead of paying down the debt as the Clinton administration had done for 3 years in a row, they raised the debt ceiling by $450 billion. That was good for just 1 year. The next year, 2003, they raised the debt ceiling again by $984 billion, the biggest increase ever; and it has lasted for 15 months. Waiting in the wings right now is another debt ceiling increase of $690 billion; and what it is waiting on is a bill to which it can be attached, a vehicle that can carry it to passage with as few fingerprints on it as possible because nobody wants to be responsible for passing that kind of debt ceiling increase. So the Treasury is reduced to engaging in a lot of gimmicks with Federal retirement funds, for example, in order that we can tie things over until finally that debt-ceiling increase can be passed. In 3 years we will have raised the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion. Compare that to the previous 8 years, and it is a phenomenal and depressing reversal.”