◼ DEBT TOPS $16 Trillion
The committee warns that under President Obama's proposed budget, the debt will surge to $25.4 trillion in 2012.
Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, says: "This is a grim landmark for the United States. The gross debt of our federal government will, for the first time, surpass $16 trillion. That’s more government debt per person than Portugal, Italy, Spain, or Greece. Yet the President seems strangely unconcerned. His budget, which received zero votes in the House or Senate, would add another $66,000 in debt for every American household. And the President’s majority in the Senate, which is required by law to produce a budget plan every single year, has refused to do so for more than 1,200 days.
"We are on a dramatically unsustainable path. Forty cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed. Systemic factors, such as our aging population, make this the most serious financial challenge our nation has ever faced. This year will mark the fourth straight deficit in excess of a trillion dollars. In the last 3 months, more people have been permanently been added to the disability rolls than have found jobs. The IRS is mailing billions of dollars in tax credits to illegal aliens, and the USDA is partnering with Mexico to boost enrollment in food stamps. Washington is disconnected from reality.
"But this crisis cannot be ducked. By failing to outline any serious plan for the financial future of this country, Democrats who run the Senate and the White House have no basis on which to ask to be kept in their majority. The nation is in desperate need of strong executive leadership to end the financial chaos, restore discipline to government, and lead us to an economic renaissance.”
