On the recordJune 1, 2023
as we all know by now, yesterday evening, the House passed a bipartisan bill to lift the debt limit and begin the process of reining in our Nation's unchecked spending habit. From the time the United States reached the debt ceiling in January, it was clear that a compromise bill would be the only way to avoid a full-blown economic crisis, which is what would happen if we were not to raise the debt ceiling. With a Democrat-led Senate and a Republican- led House and a Democrat in the White House, bipartisanship was and is a necessity. Now, Republicans, for our part, were clear that any increase in the debt ceiling must come with spending reforms. Otherwise, it would be like your maxing out your credit card and then asking to raise the credit limit so you could borrow more money without having an adult conversation about how you were going to pay the money back. In the real world, that is what would happen. You would have to have that conversation or there would be no increase in your credit card limit. But only in Washington, only in the Nation's Capital would it be even argued that you could raise the debt limit without talking about spending reform. What has happened is, our Nation's national debt has ballooned now to more than $31.4 trillion. That is a number--I doubt that anybody here in the Chamber could tell us how many zeros follow that 31.4.…
