America Must Restore Fiscal Sanity
Floor Speech
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Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for hosting this because this is extremely important. I hope people are paying attention to this.
As I say, what we are doing right now is intergenerational theft--$31 trillion in debt. That is intergenerational theft. In fact, Madam Speaker, by the time I am done speaking tonight just my part, the Federal debt will have grown by more than $13,000. That is right. I suspect I will take about 3 minutes, maybe 4, but during that time, the Federal debt will have grown by $13,000.
We learned last week that August's annual inflation rate was a staggering 8.3 percent. By ``we,'' of course, I mean everyone except Joe Biden, who boasted on 60 Minutes last night that inflation has not spiked. If the worst inflation numbers in 40 years isn't a spike, I don't know what is.
Unfortunately for Mr. Biden, the numbers don't lie. That 8.3 percent inflation is costing families well over $4,000 this year alone, essentially wiping out one month's paycheck. I don't know a single family that can afford that kind of sacrifice.
Worse, real wages have fallen every single month since President Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus passed last year.
But it is not just today's taxpayers that will feel these impacts. Generations from now, people will still be feeling the sting of Biden's inflation crisis. Over the next decade, decisions made in Biden's first 2 years will add $4.8 trillion to our Federal deficit--$4.8 trillion.
Decades of lower interest rates have spared the Federal Government from facing the true costs of borrowing at such high levels, but today's inflation has forced the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. We are quickly approaching a point where the interest alone on our Federal debt will overwhelm our Federal budget resulting in dire economic effects.
One percentage, one percentage of higher interest rates would cost the Federal Government $400 billion every year starting next year. Just 1 percent rise in the interest rate costs the Federal Government $400 billion in extra interest. That is on top of what we are paying already. That is money we could spend on national defense, healthcare, and other of the many priorities our Nation faces.
But instead, we are paying interest on our debt. Interest payments will pass defense spending by the end of the decade. They will pass Medicare by 2046 and Social Security by the midpoint of the century.
As the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates to combat inflation, which will likely happen again this week, this only gets worse. This, again, is intergenerational theft.
Every year we add more than four times the entire U.S. population to our national debt. The time to act is now. We are stealing from our children and our grandchildren and deferring a crisis for them to fix. We must act.
Each year that goes by without increased deficits digs ours hole deeper and deeper. It is time to put down the shovel.
One of the first thing I learned when I became a member of the Georgia State legislature was when you are in a hole, quit digging. We are in a hole. We are stealing from our children and our grandchildren and deferring a crisis for them to fix, and we must act.
As a medical professional by training, I am well acquainted with the Hippocratic oath, which famously says: ``First, do no harm.''
Congress must take a similar approach when it comes to our budget. Congress doesn't control interest rates, but we can control how much money is added to our national debt. Responsible fiscal policy that balances our budget is the first step to walking away from the fiscal cliff over which our children's children are already dangling.
President Biden's budget calls for $1 trillion in deficit spending every year going forward. Again, that is money we do not have and cannot continue pretending like we do.
Republicans must insist on reining in this spending. That means no more trillion-dollar packages that pour fuel on the fire of inflation. That means eliminating our deficit so we can pay off our outsized debt. That means returning the budget process to regular order.
You know, Washington Democrats recently passed the Inflation Reduction Act, or as I like to call it, the inflation acceleration act. Because this bill did not go through regular order, there was a grave oversight that threatens a $5.5 billion electric vehicle plant that is set for construction in my district. It has put it in jeopardy. This highlights just how important it is that bills go through regular order. If we had had a committee markup on this, we could have caught it. If we had vetted it--one of my favorite sayings is that none of us are as smart as all of us. That is why all of us should be involved in this.
The same logic applies to budgeting. If we don't give our Members the ability to read, debate, and amend legislation, we end up with policies and proposals and budgets that hurt the same people they purport to help.
When we miss budget deadlines, we are breaking the law. In what world does it make sense for a legislative body to routinely break Federal law, the laws we wrote and passed?
Small business owners and families have to make a budget and they have to stick to it. It is time to restore fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C. It is time to balance our budget.
Again, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I thank him for hosting this. This is important. I don't know what it is going to take to get people's attention short of a catastrophe, but I do know this: we cannot continue. We cannot continue on the route in which we are right now. This is intergenerational theft. We cannot leave this to our children and our grandchildren.
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