Charles W. Stenholm: “I want to report that our total public debt outstanding on April 30, 2002, is $5,984,677,357,213.86. That is up…”

“I want to report that our total public debt outstanding on April 30, 2002, is $5,984,677,357,213.86. That is up $323,329,559,211.21 in the last 12 months. That is up. We have borrowed a public debt of $323 billion. That is what we are here tonight to talk about. We have now reached the debt ceiling of $5.95 trillion. In fact, we are past it as of April 3, and Secretary of the Treasury Mr. O'Neill has asked that this debt ceiling be increased $750 billion. The Blue Dogs have said for the last month or 6 weeks that we are perfectly willing to give a clean up-and-down vote on increasing the debt ceiling, not by a $750 billion blank check to spend more money, but to pay for the war and to pay for the necessary spending, and all that we ask is that we have a new budget plan submitted by the administration and taken up by this Congress. The respected Concord Coalition has come out just yesterday and urged Congress to have swift action on increasing the debt ceiling and not to play games with something as serious as default on the United States of America's debt.”