This week in Congress, I joined my fellow members of the fiscally-conservative Blue Dog Coalition and called on Congress to put an end to irresponsible deficit spending.

In making this plea, my colleagues and I stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, overlooking the construction site of the Capitol Visitor’s Center. The construction site is a massive, growing hole, 4-stories deep - a true representation of the growing deficit "hole" our Government is digging in our country.

I am worried about the direction our country is going. Today we are $7 trillion in debt, and this debt is growing every hour, every minute, and every second. From 1997 to 2001, we balanced the budget, and finally started to pay down the debt. However, we have gone back to the days of deficit spending.

This year our nation’s deficit ballooned to over $374 billion. What does this mean? It means the Congress has spent $2.1 trillion, but provided only $1.78 trillion to pay for it. To make up this gap, they borrowed $374 billion from investors, much of it coming from foreign countries, like China.

In fact, we actually spend $1 billion every day, just to pay interest on the national debt. We could build 200 new elementary schools every single day with the interest we are paying on the national debt. Or, we could provide prescription drug coverage for one million seniors for a year with one day’s interest on the national debt.

When you find yourself in a hole, you’ve got to stop digging. We’ve got to put a stop to these irresponsible spending habits. If we don’t stop this hole from growing, our children and grandchildren will bear the burden.

The majority in Congress is treating our country’s budget like a credit card with no credit limit. If America’s families have to live on a budget, so should our government.