On the recordMarch 22, 2013
Mr. President, I want to thank my friend from Rhode Island for his stirring remarks and, indeed, his powerful arguments against this Nation going down the road of Greece and Spain and much of Europe. Those were indeed compelling statistics of 27-percent unemployment in Greece, and negative nearly 7-percent growth in Greece. I found myself moved looking at those statistics that all of us should act, and act with leadership, to prevent going down that road, to stop the out-of- control spending, the out-of-control debt that put Greece and Spain in those circumstances. We are right now in a situation where our Nation faces debt larger than our entire economy, greater than 100 percent of our entire economy. That is where the United States is right now. I would suggest the irresponsible policies of this Congress and this administration are why we are seeing stagnant growth. Last quarter, our economy grew 0.1 percent. I found the speech of my friend from Rhode Island quite powerful for arguing why every Member of this body should vote against the Democratic budget that will be coming up for a vote, because it is clear that raising taxes $1.5 trillion on top of the $1.7 trillion tax increase that has already been put in place will only accelerate our path to where Greece and Spain and much of Europe are. Adopting a budget that never balances in perpetuity, as sadly the Democratic budget does, will only accelerate our path to where Greece and Europe are.…





