Debt Ceiling
Floor Speech
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Mr. LEE. Madam President, for far too long, the Federal Government has been borrowing and then spending money that it simply doesn't have. This is something we have long understood as a problem for the future, for future generations. But now it is not just a problem for the future any more. We are already feeling the consequences right now. Americans of this generation are paying the price today.
Why is this the case? Well, politicians in Washington vote for enormous, reckless spending packages, and they do so for short-term political gain and praise. Now, we all know that does happen, and we all know that, whether it is a spending bill that is soon to come before this body or another, if it spends a lot of money, it probably will bring people a lot of praise.
But it is the people--the hard-working families in Utah and in every other State across the Nation--who are forced to pay the price, the price for the praise and the political gain of the politician who votes for that sort of thing. They are the ones who bear the brunt of inflation's consequences. It is making day-to-day life more expensive. More than anyone, it is the poor and middle class of America who are hit the hardest.
Every single day, it is getting more expensive to fill cupboards, refrigerators, and bellies. Every day, it is getting more expensive to drive to work or drive to the doctor or drive your kids to the school. Every day, it is getting harder to buy a house or buy a car or pay for the heat and the air conditioning in your home.
To give a few specific examples, gas prices are up over 50 percent from last year. This hurts people not only at the pump but with everything they buy, because everything they buy is more costly to transport and, therefore, more costly to purchase.
Chicken prices are soaring. Boneless, skinless chicken breast is trading at $2 per pound, compared to the $1.30 per pound it has averaged over the last two decades. Some diapers that in recent years have cost around $25 per package now cost around $40, and there are fewer diapers in each package.
We, in Utah, are certainly feeling the crunch. According to a recent survey, 85 percent of Utahns are worried about inflation, as well they should be.
Now, what does the Democrats' spending package amount to? A multitrillion-dollar inflation bomb. So far, we haven't seen text, and we haven't seen estimates about how much the bill will cost, exactly. We haven't even seen what Democrats in the White House would like in the bill. But recent estimates suggest that it will spend about $4 trillion, maybe more. The last thing we need for our already frightening inflation is to spend that amount of money. It is taking an already bad situation and making it far, far worse.
In fact, this is the first time we have seen a spending package of this kind--one that spends the amount that it does. I don't just mean the first time we have seen something like this in the Senate this year. I mean, when we are talking about a spending bill that is likely to cost $4 trillion, maybe more, that is more money than we in this body have ever spent. In fact, I would dare say it is more money than has ever been spent at any one time for one legislative proposal in the history not just of the United States of America but in the history of the world.
I mean, look at it this way. There is no entity in the history of the planet that has amassed more economic power than the U.S. Government-- the U.S. Government, which in recent years has been spending at a rate of about $4 trillion a year. This bill, in one bill, could well spend that in one single legislative package. This is an astounding amount of money. No one has ever spent money in such a large quantity in the history of the world.
What is more, this type of legislation has great potential--in fact, a darn near certainty--to carry out a reverse Robin Hood mission that is especially perverse, where we essentially rob the poor to give to the rich. Make no mistake. When we pass spending legislation like this, a small handful of well-connected people will get rich. They will get very rich. Why? Well, because they see it coming. They know how to play it. They know how to benefit from it, and they know how to capitalize on it. That is a very small group of people, and that is a small comfort to those who will be hurt by it. We will get to them in a minute. So that is the first category of people.
You have a second category of people who are well-to-do. Maybe they don't capitalize off of it, but they do end up paying a price. They find goods more expensive. But this small category of people, consisting of well-off people, might not actually feel the pinch because, perhaps, they have enough saved up; they have enough assets. It doesn't really, meaningfully impact their standard of living or their quality of life. But even those first two categories--those who will get rich off of a bill like this and those who won't feel much of an impact--make up a really small segment of the U.S. population, quite possibly, percentagewise, in the low single digits. But poor and middle-class Americans, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, will be most hurt, as they will be the ones to feel their paychecks--their limited paychecks--stretched thinner and thinner each and every week. You see, the U.S. economy doesn't suddenly make more goods simply because Congress decides to spend more. Quite to the contrary, it can't. We don't have the ability to create wealth. All we have the ability to do is channel existing wealth. So if we just add more dollars to an economy that already has access to a relatively finite group of goods and services in any given year, you are just going to increase the cost. That is what happens, and that is how poor and middle-class Americans get stuck with the bill. That is why poor and middle-class Americans end up being harmed in this bad bargain that is really good for a small handful of wealthy and well connected. It may be good for the moment for a small handful of politicians who will get praise and political gain for voting for it. It is really bad for poor and middle-class people, and that is wrong.
Look, at the end of the day, government is not the one hurt by massive, reckless spending packages like this one. People are. Real, breathing human beings are. The government doesn't go hungry at the end of the month. The government doesn't worry about paying rent when the kids need braces. The government isn't forced to choose between buying groceries and paying medical bills. The government doesn't forgo family reunions when it is time to tighten the belt. Taxpayers do. Families do, especially poor and middle-class families. The reckless spending must stop. This inflation bomb is exploding.
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