On the recordJanuary 18, 2012
Mr. Speaker, you don't decide to go to the matinee instead of the 9 p.m. movie and order a cheaper appetizer when you're $142,000 in debt. You make real, dramatic, systemic transformative change. Each one of us received an inheritance, Mr. Speaker, from our parents and grandparents. We received a better, stronger, more vibrant country than the one they inherited, and we have squandered that inheritance. We have become prodigal sons and daughters, except we have a credit card. I hope the generations that come after us will have the courage the generations that came before us had, for we have been profiles in timidity and greed.
