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Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Hidden Debt Limit Increase in House Budget Blueprint
House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has indicated that if he has the votes he will hold a vote on the House budget bill potentially as early as friday. Interestingly, this $2.7 billion budget plan includes language in it, as reported in today's Washington Post, that would bump up the federal debt ceiling yet again, to almost $10 trillion. This would be the fifth debt ceiling increase in recent years, and it would mean that the level of federal debt will have increased under President Bush by almost $4 trillion.
This information can be found in the House Concurrent Resolution on the Budget; and in this version it is located on page 129. It says:
The adoption of a conference agreement by the two Houses on a
concurrent resolution of the budget would result in the engrossment
of a House Joint Resolution adjusting the level of the statutory limit on the public debt pursuant to House Rule XXVII, in consonance with clause 3 of that rule. This resolution contemplates a
joint resolution of the following form:
Resolved, by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu
thereof $9,618,000,000,000.
If the joint resolution is enacted to raise the debt limit to the level contemplated by this resolution, the limit will be increased from $8.965 trillion to $9.618 trillion, an increase of $653 billion.
Congress last increased the debt limit in March, by an amount of $653 billion. The fact that they are suggesting increasing it again, and this time under the radar screen in the budget resolution, is extremely troubling. Congress and the administration cannot continue to spend money without being held accountable for it. Every time the debt goes up, annual interest on the debt (which is budgeted into federal spending every year) goes way up. Increased spending on the interest on the debt more often than not leads to a greater squeeze on domestic discretionary programs. As we said in a statement regarding the last debt limit increase:
The need to increase the debt limit yet again is a direct result of the fiscal policies and practices implemented by Bush and Congress over the past five years. While the administration blames the increase in U.S. debt on both the 2001 recession and the costs of the war on terrorism, in reality the cost of his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, ringing in at $225 billion in 2005 alone, carry far more of the blame for the burgeoning rise in national debt....
Allowing this level of national debt to accumulate is both unfair and irresponsible. Every single U.S. citizen now carries $28,000 of national debt burden, and this number will dramatically increase unless Congress makes some real changes to current fiscal policies. At a minimum, Senators and Representatives should be having real conversations and debate about what is wrong with current budget and tax policies and how to fix them.
Posted by Becky Lewis
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