Big Oil Subsidies

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. I thank the Senator from Wisconsin.

There is no issue that is more important or more pressing for the American people than this one right now, where we have reached a point where our debt-to-GDP ratio is about 95 percent. Our economy can't long endure that kind of borrowing. It has an effect that will result in an estimated loss of about 1 million jobs a year for each year we remain above the 90-percent, debt-to-GDP ratio. We simply can't endure that, and the American people can't endure that.

We need to increase revenues. The only way to increase revenues is to allow the economy to recover. That won't happen as long as we keep borrowing more and more money while doing nothing to control the underlying problem--the systemic problem that requires a structural reform.

The American people understandably, justifiably, and very correctly are demanding that before we raise the Nation's debt limit yet again, before we extend yet another credit card for the United States of America, we commit to some kinds of cuts. Future borrowing requires us to make future cuts. The problem with that is the moment that debt is actually used up, the moment it is incurred, the American people are under an obligation. But if we make a promise today that we are going to cut, let's say, $2 trillion or $3 trillion or $4 trillion over the next 10 or 12 or 14 or 15 years, that is a promise we can't make. That is a promise we can't really commit to because this Congress, the one that sits right now, will not be the same Congress that convenes in January of 2013 or January of 2015 or in future years.

We have to make changes right now. The only way we can commit to future cuts, to future structural reforms--the only way we can bind future Congresses--is by amending the U.S. Constitution to change the way we spend money, to limit spending as a percentage of GDP, and to require a supermajority to spend more than we have or to raise taxes.

That is what we are demanding. We are willing to work and to come to the table on the debt limit, but we demand some kind of solution that will put us on course toward sanity. That is why we are here.

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