On the recordNovember 17, 2011
This chart shows government debt as a percentage of GDP for the United States and five European countries--Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, and Greece. When Greece first got into their problem last year, they were at 120 percent of GDP. That's what their debt totaled. Already just a little over a year later, it is 152 percent of GDP because their economy is shrinking because of irresponsibility on the part of their government. The United States just this week crossed the 100 percent line. The United States owes as much in debt as we have in the total economic output of this Nation for 1 year. It is time to put a halt to this, and the best way to do it is to enshrine in our Constitution a principle we all understand, we all live by, and that is you cannot live like this, you cannot live beyond your means year after year after year. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join this bipartisan effort to enshrine in our Constitution a principle sought by the vast majority of the American people.
