Kevin Brady: “Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague that the national debt is an important issue that needs to be taken seriously. I…”

“Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague that the national debt is an important issue that needs to be taken seriously. I know for much of my lifetime, under Democratic control of Congress, America begged legislators to balance the budget, but they went deeper and deeper in debt each year. I am grateful that when Republicans took control of the House that they worked with President Clinton to balance the budget, indeed, not just to do that but to start paying off the national debt. It is terribly frustrating to me when I see the triple hit that America took, the attacks on 9/11 that cost us almost 2 million American jobs, when I see the recession President Bush inherited from his predecessor and when I see the collapse of our technology companies and the horrible actions of Enron and WorldCom and others that have given us such a triple hit to our economy; that made it so difficult. It took away so much of our revenue that we have been unable to balance the budget. But let us be real clear about what this instruction does. It requires that these extensions, the child tax credit and the 10 percent bracket for people who do not make much and the marriage penalty relief to make sure we do not penalize people simply because they are married, it requires these extensions be paid for. In other words, the motion to instruct requires more than $130 billion of tax hikes or spending cuts.”