‘All this debt is real, and it will have very real and very disturbing consequences for our children and our grandchildren’

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday regarding the consequences of the enormous debt proposed in the President’s budget:

“A lot of people are still justifiably upset that executives at bailed-out businesses received multi-million dollar bonuses compliments of the American taxpayer … and the Senate will continue to press the question of how to make sure this doesn’t ever happen again. But already there are some clear lessons that we can draw from this experience, and perhaps the most important one is this: if we can’t keep track of $165 million, then it’s going to be even harder to keep track of a Trillion-Dollar Stimulus Bill, and it’s going to be even harder still to keep track of the $3.6 trillion that the administration is proposing in its budget.

“Americans have already heard enough about this budget to know that it taxes too much. That verdict was validated by an unexpected source last week, when the President’s own Transportation Secretary, Secretary LaHood, said he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to raise taxes in a recession.

“Americans know this budget spends too much, that the spending figures are simply staggering, and that much of that spending is borrowed money. What this means is that in the middle of a recession, when most Americans are rushing to pay down their credit cards, this budget does the exact opposite: it runs up the national credit card to an extent that we have never seen in our nation’s history.

“And that’s the point about this budget that I’d like to touch on this morning — that it borrows far too much. In all the uproar about bonuses, some people may have forgotten about the budget. But with a vote on this funding blueprint fast-approaching, it’s time to refocus and to review where we are.

“A few weeks ago, with the nation still reeling from the size of the Trillion-Dollar Stimulus Bill, the administration unveiled a budget that made the Stimulus Bill look like pocket change. In the midst of a recession, the administration proposed a budget that involved major changes to education, healthcare, and energy. And to pay for it all, they proposed the largest tax hike in history and a new national energy tax that hits everybody who turns on a light bulb.

“Yet even with these tax hikes, we still wouldn’t be able to pay for all these changes — not even close. And a few days ago we learned that the amount of money we’d have to borrow to enact these policies in the midst of a severe economic downturn is even greater than we thought.

“According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the administration’s projections were extremely optimistic. The CBO said that based on its projections, the budget would increase the deficit by $2.3 trillion more over 10 years than the administration initially claimed. Now keep in mind that the total deficit from last year was $459 billion, a record high figure at the time that just a few months ago everyone agreed was too high for comfort. What we heard from the CBO is that the discrepancy between the administration’s budget estimates and the CBO estimates of a deficit over 10 years was more than four times the previous record annual budget deficit.

“So the administration is asking us to borrow an astonishing amount of money. So much so, in fact, that if we were to pass this budget as it is, the federal government in just four years will have to spend one out of every eight dollars it receives in tax dollars just to make the interest payments on its debt. It would be as if every worker in America spent the first hour of the workday, every day of the week, just working to pay off the finance charge on his or her credit cards. Of course, as debt piles up it only becomes harder to pay down. And under this budget, the debt piles up even more quickly than it’s piled up in recent months as a result of all the spending and bailouts.

“As the recession took hold, it took 13 months for the nation’s gross debt to rise from $9 trillion to $10 trillion. It took less than half that time under this administration for the debt to reach the $11 trillion mark. The nation’s debt is at its highest level ever, and it’s growing larger and larger. Under the administration’s budget, the amount of public debt will double in five years and triple in 10.

“It used to be that our friends on the other side cared quite a bit about the consequences of debt.

“All this debt is real, and it will have very real and very disturbing consequences for our children and our grandchildren. Americans are worried about it, and the CBO report makes them even more worried.

“Yet even more worrisome is the fact that so many of our friends on the other side seem un-phased by the CBO report that projects oceans of debt as far as the eye can see. I noticed the Speaker of the House was quoted yesterday saying that the CBO report wasn’t reason to rethink any of the administration’s budget priorities. Regardless of the CBO report, she said, ‘our priorities are the same.’

“The CBO report should have been a wakeup call to Congress. Instead, it’s being viewed by some as a mere inconvenience — a distraction from the political goals of those in power. Well, I would suggest that if we’ve learned one thing over the last several months, it’s that economic dangers need to be addressed early. In the midst of an economic crisis that could have been averted, Americans expect more from their elected leaders.

“This budget borrows too much. Americans are saying so.

“And Congress should listen to those warnings now — before it’s too late.”

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