Contact: Ryan Taylor
(202) 225-2311
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Lummis Statement on Increasing the Debt Limit
Washington,
Feb 4 -
Madam Speaker, two points I would like to make. One is this is not
the same statutory pay-as-you-go as was in effect in the 1990s. During
the years that President Clinton was working with a Republican Congress,
they did balance the budget and they did create a surplus, but they did
it using a statutory pay-as-you-go mechanism, or perhaps it was a
nonstatutory pay-as-you-go mechanism, that actually didn't have as many
exemptions as this one does. The fact that we are using a statutory
pay-as-you-go terminology that really doesn't limit in any way spending
to be paid for is simply disingenuous.
The other point I would like to make is about our debt limit.
We don't have to raise the debt limit today, the debt ceiling. What we
would have to do is put strict spending caps on ourselves, roll back the
budget to fiscal year 2008 levels; we would have to pull in stimulus
money, TARP money, and other expenditures that have either been returned
to the government or not yet made. And we wouldn't even have to raise
this debt ceiling.
So this is an issue of lacking fiscal responsibility. We are
in a situation of borrow-as-you-go, not pay-as-you-go.
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