Mike Enzi: “I rise to call attention to our Federal Government's unsustainable fiscal path. Earlier this month the Congressional…”

“I rise to call attention to our Federal Government's unsustainable fiscal path. Earlier this month the Congressional Budget Office reported that Federal revenues are up 3 percent, or $102 billion, compared to the same time period last year. The problem is that Federal spending grew by 7 percent, or $271 billion, over that same period. CBO projects the deficit for this year to reach $960 billion, which means that 22 cents of every dollar the government spends is borrowed. All of that borrowing doesn't come cheap. In the first 11 months of the year, net interest payments on the public debt totaled $391 billion. That is up $48 billion, or 14 percent, over the previous year. To put that in context, $391 billion is roughly 2\1/2\ times what we spend each year on the U.S. Air Force. It is more than 12 times the size of the budget of the entire U.S. Department of Justice and more than 5 times the size of the budget for the U.S. Department of Education. That is $391 billion spent with nothing to show for it. It is just like running up credit card debt and owing a whole bunch of interest without getting anything for it. That is what our future generation is really going to have to worry about. What is worse, unless something is done to change our current trajectory, annual net interest costs are projected to more than double in the next 10 years. CBO projects that over the next decade we will spend more than $5.8 trillion on net interest costs.…”