Charles W. Stenholm: “I hope our colleagues are paying a little attention to this tonight, because when we have been on this floor offering to…”

“I hope our colleagues are paying a little attention to this tonight, because when we have been on this floor offering to be part of a solution, if people are watching this right now, folks are beginning to think, I would hope, okay, what should we do about it? What do you propose we do about it? How do you stop this, or is it no problem? Well, I do not think anybody can come to the conclusion that this is no problem. If they do, they are living on a different world than the gentleman is or I am. It is a problem. It is a major problem. Not only is this foreign debt, but then when you look at the unfunded liabilities of our Social Security system, for our children and grandchildren, and I want to emphasize right here, no one watching this has to worry about your Social Security check today. That is not the problem. It is our children and grandchildren that have got to worry about it. The Medicare situation right now is a $30 trillion unfunded liability. That is the more immediate problem. But our point tonight is in emphasizing this body, the 108th Congress, has done nothing to address the problem the gentleman is showing, has done nothing to address the Social Security unfunded liability, has done nothing to deal with Medicare, other than dig the hole deeper; and that is the concern that we bring tonight. It is time that we start doing something about it.”