U.S. Senator Ken Salazar Member of the Agriculture, Energy and Veterans Affairs Committees 2300 15^th Street, Suite 450 Denver, CO 80202 | 702 Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510
For Immediate Release March 16, 2006		CONTACT: Cody Wertz – Comm. Director 303-455-7600 Andrew Nannis – Press Secretary 202-224-5852
Sen. Salazar Votes Against New Record Federal Debt of $9T WASHINGTON, D.C. – In an historic moment today in Washington, the United States Senate voted to increase the maximum limit of the national debt to nearly $9 trillion, the third time in the last four years that Congress has increased the debt limit by more than three-quarters-of a trillion dollars. United States Senator Ken Salazar cast a vote for fiscal discipline by opposing the debt increase saying, “Washington continues to fund tax cuts for millionaires by running up the debt burden on our children. But Washington refuses to enact common-sense reforms like Pay-As-You-Go rules, which force Congress to be able to pay for what it spends and which failed yesterday on a 50-50 vote. This is recklessness at its worst, and we can do better than leveraging away this Nation’s fiscal future.” The debt limit increase (H.J.Res 47) passed by the Senate today by a vote of 52 to 48 – despite Senator Salazar’s objections – authorized an additional $781B in debt, the fourth largest debt increase in U.S. history, raising the total authorized U.S. debt to $8.965 trillion. Since January 2001, the federal debt has increased 53 percent, with Congress raising the debt limit by $450B in 2002, $984B in 2003 (the largest debt increase in U.S. history) and $800B in 2004 (third largest debt increase in U.S. history). Over that same time, the amount of U.S. public debt held by foreigners has increased 120 percent, from approximately $1T in January 2001 to approximately $2.2T in January 2006. ###