Source: United States Senator for Wyoming John Barrasso
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) delivered remarks on the Senate floor on the Democrats’ reckless tax and spending process.
Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s remarks.
Excerpts from Senator Barrasso’s remarks:
“I come to the floor to join my colleague from Indiana and to congratulate him on those remarks, which would be most certainly well received in Wyoming and reflect the feeling of the people of my state in terms of the reckless tax and spending process in which the Democrats are engaged.
“I come today to the floor to oppose what the Democrats are trying to do in terms of adding money to the debt, additional spending, a bill that has been described in so many ways.
“It is reckless, it’s extreme. It’s scary to talk about the sort of things that the Democrats are trying to impose on the American people.
“When we take a look at what happens with this national debt, the folks on Medicare and on Social Security are concerned they are going to get undermined – those wonderful programs that work for so many people – because of the growing debt.
“How are we going to address it? Well, the suspension of the debt ceiling expired a month and a half ago.
“Less than two weeks later, Democrats passed a blueprint for the largest spending bill in the history of the United States.
“Over $3.5 trillion. People looked at it and said ‘how much it is?’ Democrats may say $3.5 trillion. It’s a lot more than that. More than America spent in World War II to win the war?
“This is in addition to the $2 trillion already spent and added to the debt by this administration in a party-line vote earlier this year.
“So America’s debt is no over $28 trillion, on our way to $30 trillion. Divide that out by the number of men, women, and children in America, it is approaching $100,000 per individual.
“It’s going to have to be paid back ultimately to Wall Street, to Japan, to China, to those who hold our debt.
“And the problem when you look at a debt that large … is how do you put that into perspective? It is how much interest we are paying on the loan.
“People that borrow money for a car or a home know how much interest they are paying on the loan. For the United States it is approaching $400 billion interest on the loan a year.
“This is at record-low interest rates. Well, where is that money coming from? You get nothing in return for it.
“But Democrats seem to think we need to just keep spending money and borrowing money to pay for the reckless spending.
“They don’t want voters to know about it, they don’t want voters to know how much.
“They are asking for an unlimited ability to spend until after the 2022 election. That’s what’s coming over from the House.
“They said, ‘don’t ask us, we’re not going to tell you. We’re just going to keep on spending like there is no tomorrow all the way through a date after the 2022 election.’
“They want to cover all of this spending by suspending what is called the debt ceiling so they can borrow as much as they want.
“It’s not going to happen. You can’t have it both ways.
“They try to spend trillions of dollars, they are going to be responsible for the consequences of that spending.
“Republicans are not going to give Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi a blank check, period.
“We are not going to give them a rubber-stamp to their reckless spending.
“If Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling, they have the capacity to do it on their own and they will need to do it on their own. Republicans are not going to participate.
“The Democrats have been in charge in Washington for eight full months. They have complete control, the House, the Senate, the White House.
“During all that time, haven’t raised a finger to lift the debt ceiling. Instead, they had the Secretary of the Treasury send a letter. She said the Treasury will run out of money in October.
“It’s now September 22, the clock is ticking, Democrats chose not to raise the debt ceiling when they passed their $2 trillion addition to the debt earlier this year.
“They called it Covid relief, less than 9% of the money actually went for medical care. They chose not to raise it as part of this $3.5 trillion or $4 trillion spending bill that is being proposed as a result of Bernie Sanders’ socialist budget.
“And Democrats think that the American people can keep spending money in such a reckless way.
“They are playing chicken with our economy. Think they can fool the American people. It’s not going to work.
“Republicans are not going to be held hostage by the Democrats and the American people should not be either or be put on the hook.
“Democrats have enough votes to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars, then they have enough votes to raise the debt limit.
“This is Democrat debt, it is Biden-Schumer-Pelosi debt.
“Senate Republicans will not vote to burden future generations or to undermine social security and Medicare today with this kind of reckless spending.
“We’re not going to vote for the spending bill, not one of us, not going to vote to raise the debt limit on Democrat terms.
“If they want to go it alone on spending, the Democrats can go it alone on raising the debt ceiling.”
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