It really never gets old...
Date: March 16, 2006
Place: Senate Floor
Speech:
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt
limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the
U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on
ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s
reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to
$8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have
borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan,
borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between
now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another
$3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder
why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220
billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt
than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will
spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits
combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to
rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the
Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our
cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports,
and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in
education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and
health security they have counted on. Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to
investment in America’s priorities.
Fast forward to today, when the same senator, now president, is openly
threatening with using a veto to impose his will on raising
the debt ceiling over that of what, at least according to the Congress,
is still the majority of Americans.
So much change in 6 years indeed...
CEO, Parisian Family Office. Began Wall Street in '82. Founded investment firm, Native American Advisors, '95. White Earth Chippewa. Raised on reservations. Conservative. NYSE/FINRA arbitrator. Drexel Burnham alum. Pureblood, clot-shot free. In a world elevated on a tech-driven dopamine binge, he trades from GHOST RANCH on the Yellowstone River in MT, TN farm, PAMELOT or CASA TULE', the family winter camp in Los Cabos, Mexico. Always been, will always be, an optimist.
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