On the recordFebruary 4, 2010
I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I heard one of my Democratic colleagues say that today is a historic day, that there is a historic opportunity. And yes, history is being made today because never in the history of America has the debt limit been increased to $14.294 trillion. Here we are again, just a few months later, enacting yet another increase in the debt limit. The new debt limit, again, $14.3 trillion, costing every American household over $120,000. What do I hear from my Democratic colleagues? Well, we hear the old blame game. That's the first thing that we hear. We hear a lot of names from the past. Well, facts are pesky things, Madam Speaker. Listen, there is blame to go around. My party spent too much money. I have a chart right here. It's Congress that controls the purse strings, as we all know. And when the Republicans controlled Congress--this is the blue--these were our deficits. They averaged about $104 billion a year. I'm embarrassed about that. It's much too high. Now in their 3 years of control by the Democrats, we have deficits that are averaging over $1 trillion, $1.1 trillion. That's the difference. What was once our annual deficits have become their monthly deficits, Madam Speaker. That's totally unacceptable. More history was made earlier this week when the President submitted his proposed budget that so many of my friends on the other side of the aisle decided to embrace. It made history. It is breathtaking in its red ink.
