Pushing the debt ceiling

Every day the federal debt clock ticks away at an alarming rate, tallying up how much our government is borrowing to cover more spending. As of this week, only a few hundred billion dollars separated us from our current eye-popping national debt and the self-imposed debt ceiling of $12.104 trillion. According to press reports, Democrats are planning to attach legislation to increase the national debt ceiling to the Fiscal Year 2010 Defense funding bill to avoid taking a separate vote on adding more debt. Congress shouldn’t tie funding for our troops in harm's way to an increase in its ability to borrow and spend.

This week the U.S. Treasury will auction off $123 billion in debt to investors around the world to finance our government spending habits. We continue to rely on countries such as China and Japan to purchase our debt, and these countries are questioning our commitment to get a handle on our spending.

The federal deficit for the 2009 fiscal year, which just ended, is $1.4 trillion. Due to policy proposals that would further increase spending, the White House has projected that the annual federal deficit will remain above $1 trillion through 2011.

Congress and the President must work together to take control of this situation now. If we fail to do so, our children and grandchildren will be forced to deal with even more difficult decisions than we face.

The problem of borrowing up to the debt limit is not a new one. Yes, previous Congresses, including Republican-led ones, have failed to control their spending habits. Since 1940, Congress has increased the debt ceiling more than 90 times. We cannot afford to continue allowing this out of control spending that pushes borrowing to these extreme limits.

Simply expanding the debt ceiling is not a long-term solution. I believe Congress should stop passing bills to increase spending this year and instead freeze spending at last year’s levels. I submitted an amendment that would have done just that. While this is not a complete solution to our spending problem, we have to start somewhere. If we simply continue to increase spending when it is clear we can not afford to do so, we only add more deficits and more debt.