Just 21 years in the year 2000 when this Century began our national debt stood at roughly five trillion dollars Mr President I want you to pause and think about that year 2000 wasn’t that long ago five trillion dollars is the total amount we owed in 2001 George W bush became president
During the eight years of Bush’s presidency the debt doubled from five trillion dollars to 10 trillion dollars my party Bears a significant degree of responsibility for that growth then in 2008 Barack Obama was elected president and over the next eight years the debt doubled again from 10 trillion dollars to 20 trillion dollars
I want you to pause and reflect on that the five trillion dollar debt that we started the 21st century with had been accumulated by 42 presidents over two centuries and then two presidents over 16 years won a Republican and one a Democrat took our debt and increased it by 300
Percent quadrupled the nation’s debt in 16 years as we stand here today in 2021 some nine months into the Joe Biden presidency the debt is roughly 29 trillion dollars my home state the great state of Texas has roughly 29 million residents that means the national debt is one million dollars
For every man woman and child in the state of Texas that is reckless and irresponsible now my Democratic colleagues point out that Republicans spent too much during the Trump presidency I agree much of that spending I voted against and I would note last year was an extraordinary year
With a pandemic unlike anything any of us have ever seen in our lives I wish Republicans had been better at exercising fiscal responsibility when we had control of the White House and both houses of Congress the unfortunate reality in this body though is that when you have a multi-trillion dollar spending bill
You can usually count on the votes of every single Democrat and about half the Republicans and so on spending bill after spending Bill we see 75 to 80 Senators coming together usually all the Democrats and half the Republicans and there are about 20 of us who try to
Say why are we bankrupting our kids and grandkids why are we digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper but that is at least right now a minority view in this body but the fact that my party bears significant responsibility for the debt we have today is not to draw an equivalency
Between what’s happened in the past and what is happening right now because Mr President with Senate Democrats what house Democrats and what President Biden are doing now has no precedent in our nation’s history it is an order of magnitude difference Senate Democrats house Democrats and President Biden if the spending
Proposals they have put forth pass within a 12-month period they will have spent 9.5 trillion dollars one of the problems people have at home is understanding big numbers a million a billion a trillion they’ve all got an alien in them it’s hard to tell the difference that just sounds
Like a lot of money let’s put 9.5 trillion in context 9.5 trillion dollars is more than twice what the United States spent to win World War II the entire course of the war it cost us less than half of that to save the Free World and defeat the Nazis
And Washington Democrats are trying to spend that in 12 months it is wildly irresponsible it is reckless they are trying to accompany that with trillions of dollars of new taxes if the Democrats get their way every tax you can think of is going up individual income tax is going up
Corporate taxes are going up small business taxes are going up capital gains taxes are going up the death tax is going up farmers are paying more in taxes ranchers are paying more in taxes small businesses are paying more in taxes Working Families are paying more in taxes
Joe Biden campaign promising no one who makes four hundred thousand dollars a year or less we’ll see their taxes go up that statement was a flat out falsehood and by the way look I recognize Joe Biden and I are of a different party so maybe you’re inclined not to credit me
With my assessment of the truth or falsity of President Biden’s promise well if you don’t take my word for it take the joint committee on taxation’s word for it that analyze the Democrats tax program and found for roughly 80 percent of Americans taxes either stayed the same or go up
That it’s cutting taxes for a very small portion of Americans it’s raising taxes on people with incomes as low as forty thousand dollars a year by the way it’s also worth noting part of the democratic talking points is that the deficit is driven by the 2017 tax cut
Those are good partisan talking points those will get a round of applause in any Democratic Gathering although I say that with all Candor Mr President I haven’t been to very many Democratic gatherings but I feel confident that is accurate that Democrats like yes too many tax cuts before you’re inclined just to believe
That political rhetoric however you might at least pause to look at the facts to look at the numbers and the facts and numbers show that after we pass the 2017 tax cuts cutting taxes on Working Families across this country that we saw record Prosperity we saw the
Lowest unemployment in 50 years we saw the lowest African-American unemployment ever recorded we saw the lowest Hispanic unemployment ever recorded and we saw federal tax revenues go up so the next time you hear a Democrat say the debt comes from the tax cut it just ain’t so
The next year the treasury got more money in taxes than it had the year before so the Democratic narrative about tax cuts driving the debt is to borrow a term from the current president malarkey the debt that we are facing as a result of this wild spending spree
Is going up and up and up and one of the consequences of that spending in that debt is we are seeing an inflation bomb going Acro off in this country now for younger Americans inflation may not sound very real inflation is not something we’ve lived with in recent times we’ve been in this
Sort of weird Holiday from economic history with inflation being very very low Mr President you and I are both old enough to remember the 1970s we’re both old enough to remember double-digit inflation 21 interest rates inflation is a cruel tax and it’s a tax on everybody but it’s particularly cruel on the most
Vulnerable you know who gets hammered with inflation senior citizens seniors who spent their whole lives saving they suddenly see the values of their savings going down and down and down because Washington politicians are devaluing their money seniors who are on a fixed income get the same amount of money each month
But suddenly the cost of everything goes up right now today all across this country in Texas in Virginia and every other state prices are going up the cost of gasoline has skyrocketed as a direct result of Joe Biden and the Democrats policies the cost of food is going up the cost of
Rent is going up the cost of lumber is going up the cost of homes is going up according to the chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics for households earning the U.S median annual income which is about seventy thousand dollars a year the current inflation rate has forced them to spend another
175 dollars a month in food and fuel and housing that works out to two thousand one hundred dollars a year so each month if your family is at the median income level in the United States the Democrat inflation tax is about 175 bucks a month and that’s before their massive tax
Rates kick in and that’s before this body passes the Bernie Sanders socialist budget it’s worth noting just how radical these Democrats are President Biden is in the white house that’s true but in the senate senate Democrats have the slimmest majority possible this is a 50 50 body it is only by
Virtue of the vice president’s tie-breaking vote that they have any majority at all and yet Democrats have interpreted this incredibly close election as a mandate to radically transform this country Joe Biden didn’t campaign on that Joe Biden campaign as a nice happy Centrist moderate no more Mean Tweets nothing to
Scare you at home we’re just going to return to the Halcyon Days of yesteryear five years ago well let’s go back even further than that nine years ago Mr President when you and I were both elected to the Senate we arrived here the exact same time nine years ago there was exactly one
Socialist in this in this body that admitted he was a socialist that was Bernie Sanders do you ask Senator Sanders he would say I’m a socialist I’m not a Democrat I’m running as a socialist and most of the Democrats in this body would say no no that’s not me I’m not a
Socialist like him that was a fringe View even in the 2020 election Joe Biden when he was running in a primary against Bernie Sanders said no no no I’m not a socialist well today Bernie Sanders is the chairman of the budget committee we are in the midst of debating
Passing the Bernie Sanders socialist budget 5.5 trillion dollars that’s radical that is Extreme and I think our Democratic colleagues are too scared of the Left Flank In Their Own party to DARE stand up to it now in addition to the Reckless spending to The Reckless taxes they’re trying to Ram
Through to the massive debt they’re trying to Ram through we also have a radical agenda across the country including on our Southern border where we are facing a crisis on our Southern border over 2 million people are expected to cross illegally this year the highest rate of illegal immigration
In 21 years and Congressional Democrats refused to do anything about it Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have handed the agenda over to the open border radicals and we’re seeing a Public Health crisis we’re seeing a national security crisis we’re seeing it a humanitarian crisis as a result
And as bad as the economic and domestic policy has been the foreign policy has been even worse including the greatest National Security disaster and foreign policy disaster in a generation the utterly incompetent and calamitous surrender in Afghanistan all of that extreme agenda is being pushed by Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and Nancy
Pelosi which brings us to our present crisis the debt ceiling crisis our national debt roughly 29 million dollars and yet Democrats want to add trillions more to that how many trillions we don’t know they’re battling within their conference just how many trillions more to saddle
This country but it’s going to be a lot but you know the Curious Thing this crisis is 100 percent manufactured by democrats why is that because for the entirety of this Congress Democrats have had complete 100 percent power to raise the debt ceiling anytime they wanted
How is that well ordinarily in this body the way legislation moves it needs 60 votes to move it’s called the legislative filibuster but there’s an exception to that it’s a big exception it’s called budget reconciliation it comes from the budget Act of 1974. under budget reconciliation you only
Need 50 votes not 60 votes it’s the biggest exception that exists to the filibuster rule Democrats unfortunately have 50 votes in this body they have a majority in the house and they have the White House that means Democrats using budget reconciliation and it is clear by the
Way that you can raise the debt ceiling using budget reconciliation Democrats could have raised the debt ceiling in January they didn’t they could have raised the debt ceiling in February they didn’t they could have raised it in March or April or May or June July August September they didn’t we’re in October
Democrats could have raised the debt ceiling today they didn’t they could have done it with only Democratic votes and there was not a single thing Republicans could have done to stop him they know that they don’t dispute that so why are we facing a crisis if for 10
Months Democrats could have done this anytime they wanted why didn’t they well because there are at least some Democrats who realized drowning the nation in debt and spending in taxes is not popular back home the voters don’t like it and so instead Majority Leader Schumer as not once not twice three times tried
To move a legislative vehicle to raise the debt ceiling that requires 60 votes he didn’t have to do it he could have done it using reconciliation using only Democratic votes he had total power to do that but he didn’t want to do that he wanted to use it
To move it forward in a way that required at least 10 Republicans to join with him why there is one and only one reason for this Mr President I would challenge any Senate Democrats to ask Majority Leader Schumer if there’s any other reason he proffered for not doing
What he could have done at any time day or night the only reason is to obscure accountability the only reason is to blame some of that debt on Republicans so that Senate Democrats could claim hey both parties did it what the Democrats are doing right now is unprecedented it is radical
And they know it and they’re scared of it so what are we seeing instead we’re seeing Chuck Schumer tell the American people we’re on the verge of a default we’re seeing Joe Biden threatened that the United States will default on our debt we’re seeing the treasury secretary threaten that the
United States will default on our debt Joe Biden’s threats to default on the debt are wildly Reckless and irresponsible let me be clear so that no one is confused the United States should never ever ever default on our debt periods all 100 senators in this chamber agree with that
There is not a single senator in either party who believes the United States should default in our debt why does Joe Biden go on national television and threaten the default on the debt when he could have raised the debt ceiling any time he wanted because he’s playing a game of political brinksmanship threatening
A calamitous result on the American economy because he wants to browbeat Republicans into serving as a smoke screen to help hide the responsibility Democrats pay for their massive spending and debt and I gotta say for the last several months I was proud of my party Republicans were United
We were standing together we were standing as one and every single Republican all 50 Republicans were telling anyone that would listen we will not participate in raising the debt ceiling if the Democrats are going to raise trillion in spending they need to raise the debt ceiling and own the debt
That their Reckless spending is producing our party was completely United the Republican leader and I and he and I have had significant disagreements over the years but on this question we were in exactly the same place we were saying exactly the same thing our conference has a wide
Range of views from conservatives to moderates to Libertarians all 50 of us were on the same page the Democrats have the power to raise the debt ceiling on their own they are engaged in wildly Reckless spending and if they’re going to do that they need to be the ones to vote for this
Debt we were United for two months indeed 46 of us signed a letter to Chuck Schumer I think two months ago making clear what our position was I helped write that letter it was not a fringe position of a couple of members of the conference we got 46
Out of 50 Republican Senators to sign it so Schumer knew Pelosi knew Biden knew but they chose to engage in Reckless brinksmanship now I believe the end result of this game of chicken was clear that Democratic leader Schumer was on a path to surrender was on a path to doing what he should
Have done a week ago or two weeks ago or three weeks ago or a month ago or two months ago which is moving a Reconciliation Bill and raising the debt ceiling and I can tell you there were Democratic senators multiple Democratic senators coming to me coming out of the members of my party
Saying okay how much time would it take to move a Reconciliation bill can we get it done in time for the October 18th date that the treasury secretary has laid out and to a person Republicans answered yes there’s plenty of time under the rules of reconciliation to
Move forward there’s no barrier you have all the time you need I believe Democratic leader Schomer was on the verge of surrendering and then unfortunately yesterday Republicans blinked I think that was a mistake I think that was the wrong decision now I’ll tell you the reason Republican leadership made that decision to Blink
Was because Senate Democrats threatened to Nuke the filibuster to eliminate the filibuster I don’t know if that threat was real I don’t know if they would have carried through on it or not but I understand why Republican leadership blinked ending the filibuster would enable Democrats to pass an even
More radical agenda than the one they’re doing right now it would enable Democrats to pass things that would profoundly alter this nation perhaps irreparably so I understand why Republican leadership blinked what I wish they hadn’t I wish they hadn’t because I believe we were on the verge of Victory the
American people agreed with us the Democrat position on its face was objectively unreasonable here’s the Democratic position we have complete power to raise the debt ceiling anytime we want but the only way we’ll do it is if Republicans do it with us otherwise we’ll default on the debt
Even the Capitol Hill press Corps oh Mr President in your quieter moments you will admit leans very far left even the Capitol Hill press Corps knew that was ridiculous and so unfortunately yesterday we were on the verge of Victory but we turned that victory into defeat now let’s be clear
What the order order of magnitude of this defeat is we are soon going to vote on moving to take up the debt ceiling and the political games played by Democratic leader Schumer may have prevailed in the short term by cajoling 10 or more Republicans to vote with the Democrats
To allow a vote on the debt ceiling I hope that doesn’t happen I hope we defeat that vote I’m certainly going to vote no and I’m urging my colleagues to vote now but if 60 or more Senators vote to take up the vote then we will see a clear divide
On the debt ceiling all 50 Republicans will vote no on the debt ceiling all 50 Democrats will vote Yes we will see a clear divide I wish it had happened without the political games without the political theater that Democratic Leadership played one of the reasons I think it was a
Mistake for Republican leadership to give in to the demands to the hostage taking to the political terrorism of the other side is that it significantly Hurts The credibility of the Republican conference the Democratic leader is no doubt telling every Democratic senators you see they won’t hold their ground they’ll give in
All we have to do is stand strong and they won’t stand and fight against us now I hope that proves nothing more than hot air I hope that proves a bad estimation of what Republican Senators will do I can tell you this conference remains absolutely United that the Bernie
Sanders socialist budget of 5.5 trillion dollars with trillions in taxes is wildly and recklessly irresponsible and would do massive damage to this country I hope and believe we’ll stay United on that but we could have stayed United on the debt ceiling as well we could have stayed United in making
Clear that the Democrats had every ability to do this on their own but sometimes in a poker game a bluff wins the pot in this case to mix my metaphors which would make my high school English teacher very angry in the game of chicken Chuck Schumer won this game of chicken
As two trucks drove towards each other on a country road one or the other was going to turn or you were going to have a lot of dead chickens I wish Republicans hadn’t blinked we shouldn’t have done that but the Strategic Mistake by our leadership should not distract from the fundamental
Divide in this body I don’t know why it is that Democratic senators look at this last election an unbelievably close election and conclude there is no need for bipartisanship in the Senate that their mandate is rammed through a radical and socialist agenda and let me be clear by the way
The first major Bill Democrats took up was a 1.9 trillion dollar spending Bill a so-called coveted relief bill I say so-called coveted relief because only nine percent of the bill was Health Care spending on covet it was a liberal wish list paying off special interests that support the Democrats
You know Mr President you and I were both at Joe Biden’s inauguration we sat on the steps of the capitol we heard President Biden give what I thought was a pretty good speech speech about Unity a speech about coming together a speech about healing sadly that speech didn’t even last
The time it took for the words to be transmitted over the airwaves to the people listening at home it would have been easy for President Biden and Democrats to pass a bipartisan covid relief bill easy there were Republicans eager to do so and Mr President to show that that’s not
Just empty posturing that that’s not just partisan language last year when we had a republican majority in the Senate we passed bipartisan coveted relief bills not once not twice not three times not four times five times five times when Republicans had the majority we didn’t Ram through coveted relief
Bills that were hard partisan bills but instead we worked together with the other side when Joe Biden who promised healing and unity the first Big Bill he had he made a choice do I want to honor what I said or do I want to give in to the angry socialist left
And he rammed through a bill a 1.9 trillion dollar spending bill that the House of Representatives got zero Republican votes and then the Senate got zero Republican votes and I got to tell you Senate Democrats didn’t want a Republican vote there wasn’t even a minute of discussion of negotiation there wasn’t an attempt
To make it bipartisan it was we have the power by the narrowest narrowest margin and we’re going to abuse that power and sadly it hasn’t changed it has continued this Bernie Sanders socialist budget 5.5 trillion dollars is reckless and partisan and it will get zero Republican
Votes in the house it will get zero Republican votes in the Senate because the Democrats believe they have a short window to fundamentally transform this nation and to destroy the free market system that has produced the greatest Prosperity this nation has ever seen this is tragic and Mr President I for one
Will continue doing everything humanly possible to lead the fight to stop this radical agenda that threatens the lives the safety the security the Liberties the constitutional rights and the financial future of 29 million Texans bankrupting our kids and grandkids is serious business and the political games from the Democrats
Are meant to distract from that and let me note finally there is legislation I have supported all nine years I’ve served in this body it’s legislation introduced by the senator from Pennsylvania Senator Toomey it’s called the full faith and credit Act although I actually prefer a different name for it
The name I prefer is the default prevention Act it’s legislation that says in the event the credit limit is not raised the United States will never ever ever default on the debt that even without the credit limit being raised there are tax revenues coming in every month so the default prevention act makes
Clear we’ll prioritize those tax revenues to interest on the debt to paying our active duty military and to Social Security and Medicare government by crisis would end or at least be substantially mitigated if we pass the default prevention Act earlier today I was on a radio program Sean Hannity’s radio program
Where he played an interesting clip of Democrats all talking about debt ceiling denial or default denial and and I commend the other party one of the things the Democrats do really well is message discipline when they come up with talking points it is remarkable every Democrat in these United States of
America from Joe Biden down to the county dog catcher they repeat the exact same words so Sean Hannity played a whole series of Just Clips of Democrats using the identical talking points debt ceiling denial default denial you know who’s in denial is the Democrats they’re in denial that the debt ceiling
Exists they’re in denial of the 29 trillion dollars that’s bankrupting our kids and grandkids and they like these crises why do I know they like these crises because they don’t want to pass the default prevention Act if the Democratic senators who give speeches about how bad a default would
Be if they actually believe that we could come together today and we could ensure the citizens of Texas citizens of Virginia the citizens of Utah that there will never ever ever be a default of our debt but if we did that it would mean that Senator Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and President Biden
Couldn’t engage in the kind of theatrics the kind of Reckless brinksmanship that we’ve seen over the last several weeks that would jeopardize their radical agenda I hope and pray that this body the Senate serves as the last bulwark to stop the radical socialist agenda that Washington Democrats are trying to Ram through
I yield the floor
