Russ Feingold: “I rise to help bring attention back to the issue of fiscal discipline and protecting Social Security and Medicare for…”

“I rise to help bring attention back to the issue of fiscal discipline and protecting Social Security and Medicare for the generation to come. All parents want the best for their children. Parents will scrimp and save so that they can take care of their kids, buy them new clothes, and help them go to school. We do it because we love our children, and because it's the right thing to do. On a societal level, we are doing exactly the opposite. Rather than saving for the future needs of the next generation, rather than paying down debt to prepare for their future needs, rather than investing in assets now so that we will be better able to provide for the next generation, the Government instead has decided to spend its resources and more on current consumption. And that's the wrong thing to do. When we can see our children's faces and hear their dreams, we try to do whatever we can for them. But when we act as a society, when we make government policy, we seem unable to control our appetites for current consumption, we seem unable to do anything for the millions of our children's generation. And that is simply, on a moral level, the wrong thing to do. For when we in this generation choose to spend on current consumption and to accumulate debt for our children's generation to pay, we do nothing less than rob our children of their own choices.”