Reducing the Federal Deficit

Floor Speech

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, over the past several weeks, we've been debating ways to reduce the Federal deficit.

Republicans have said that everything is on the table and that nothing is sacred, but that just isn't true. The Republicans refuse to cut tax giveaways to the wealthiest special interests in this country. And when it comes to discussing the merits of continuing our efforts in Afghanistan, the Republicans clamor to defend it despite our fiscal mess.

I want to remind my Republican friends, the situation we are in now is not new. Throughout history, from Rome to the Ottoman Empire to the Soviet Union, the overextension of military and protracted struggles in foreign countries have crippled empires.

Some historians have credited Ronald Reagan for the Soviet Union's collapse, but what really bankrupted the Soviet Union was its wars. Just like us, they paid a crushing price both financially and morally in Afghanistan. Overextending geopolitically comes at a cost over time, and any nation that thinks otherwise is setting itself up to repeat the mistakes of the past.

As of today, the United States has spent more than 2 1/2 times the percentage of GDP on Afghanistan than the Soviet Union spent of its GDP during its 9-year war in Afghanistan. Public polls are clear: Americans know the cost of the war in Afghanistan is unsustainable and want us to withdraw as soon as possible.

And when it comes to cutting back on support for the neediest Americans, we can't seem to face the urgent reality that the money that we spend abroad needs to be spent here at home. The financial facts tell the story. Taxpayers in my district in Seattle have spent $1.1 billion for the Afghanistan war to date. Think about that: one city, $1.1 billion. For the same amount of money, we could provide health care for 700,000 children from low-income families, or put 125,000 kids in Head Start, or health care for 150,000 more veterans.

Imagine how different it would be if States like Wisconsin, which faces a $3.6 billion budget deficit, did not have to bear the cost of the war in Afghanistan.

So the question before us is simple: What is our priority? Fighting a war with no end or investing in the American people? The answer lies in what kind of country we are, what legacy we leave behind to our children and our grandchildren, and transcending political decisions toward a common commitment to make America strong again.

America will cease to be a world power if we fail to support the domestic foundations of our Nation. Yet the House does not even blink as it approved a $650 billion defense budget last Friday. While the Republicans were cutting any spending that helps people, they didn't so much as flinch as they threw hundreds of billions of dollars into the bottomless pit of the defense budget.

We need to stop seeing the world through the lens of constant threat and foster a sense of the common good and shared responsibility. That, not our military footprint, is what will advance our interests in the world and make us confident again.

In a national poll conducted last year, 47 percent of Americans rated China's economy as the strongest economy in the world. Our crumbling roads reflect our crumbling self-confidence. Our national prosperity is vital to our national security, and that is why I believe getting out of Afghanistan must be the center of reducing our deficit. Anything short of that would ignore the fiscal reality and the will of the American people to end the Afghanistan war.

We have a choice before us: Continue the war and continue downhill, or stop the war and start up the hill to regain what we've lost over the last few years.

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