Charles W. Stenholm: “We are saying that to increase our debt ceiling without a plan for getting us back into balance is irresponsible. We are…”

“We are saying that to increase our debt ceiling without a plan for getting us back into balance is irresponsible. We are prepared to vote to increase the debt ceiling short term. We do not want to see our country default on its debt. We do not want that; no one wants that. But we do believe it is irresponsible for us to blindly follow an economic game plan that has squandered $5 trillion of surpluses without first dealing with the problems of Social Security and Medicare. We think that is irresponsible. And we hope that as a majority of this House puts together their budget, this year we would hope that we could be a part of it. We are here tonight saying that if you participate in a budget process that gives us a plan to get us back into balance in a reasonable period of time and that keeps us in balance, we will support it. But we will not support increasing the debt limit by $750 billion by not only continuing down the plan area that we are into tonight but actually making it worse as the budget that has been presented to Congress projects to do.”