WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) delivered a speech on the U.S. Senate floor urging Congress to address the United States’ crushing national debt ahead of the budget resolution vote. Cassidy stressed that Congress must balance the national budget to preserve the American Dream.
“President Trump recognizes the relationship between our national debt and the family’s ability to achieve the American Dream… Balancing the budget is a key part of preserving the American dream,” said Dr. Cassidy.
“Given the commitment from leadership to pay for this bill by a variety of means, whether it is within the reconciliation vehicle or outside of that process, and the need to reestablish confidence among those making business decisions and creating jobs, I will vote for this budget resolution,” continued Dr. Cassidy.
“I want America to be great for all Americans. That we can all live to the limits of our God given gifts. Creating opportunity is part of this. I hope, my expectation is that through this process we will create more opportunity to express God-given gifts, to achieve the American Dream,” concluded Dr. Cassidy.
Background
Earlier this week, Cassidy joined CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss the need to address our national debt. In March, Cassidy penned an op-ed in The Hill highlighting the need for Congress to address the national debt and put an end to runaway spending moving the American Dream further out of reach for many families.
Cassidy’s remarks as prepared for delivery are below:
Mr. President,
Our country has some pretty severe economic challenges. I’m not talking about the recent stock market losses, although those are quite important to someone with a 401k.
I’m talking about how real Americans, average Americans, feel as if the American Dream of homeownership, of buying a new car or truck, of affording a student loan is slipping out of their grasp.
We saw this fear during the Biden administration when inflation was so high that interest rates rose. As interest rates rose, so did consumer interest rates on all sorts of things that directly impact the ability of a family to realize the American Dream.
This speech is about how do we preserve the ability of American families to achieve that dream and how what we are doing today impacts that.
It may seem pretty distant to the people watching at home, but what we are discussing today does directly impact this.
How much money the federal government borrows and how much this budget resolution leads to increased indebtedness sounds abstract but has a real impact on the American Dream.
Some of the process discussions that normally wouldn’t matter to you if you’re outside of Congress are actually very important to this discussion on how much we’re going to borrow and how achievable the American Dream is for folks in Louisiana–the folks I represent.
Let me explain. As our country borrows more money, it begins to compete with businesses, individuals, and families for the money that is out there to borrow. The federal government will always get the first amount. This drives up interest rates, which means that you pay more for your mortgage, car note, student loan and everything else.
The only way to stop this from happening is for the federal government to live within its means. I think the inflation of the last four years is one of the main reasons the American people voted for President Trump. The Biden administration did not live within their means. The people wanted change.
President Trump recognizes the relationship between our national debt and the family’s ability to achieve the American Dream. In his joint address to Congress last month, he spoke both of renewing this Dream and of his desire to balance the nation’s budget.
I agree with him. Balancing the budget is a key part of preserving the American dream.
Why is this important now? Our country is $36 trillion in debt now. We are scheduled to add another $21 trillion over the next 10 years if we do nothing. But if we do some of what we are speaking of today, but don’t pay for it, we will add another $5 to $11 trillion on top of the $21 trillion I mentioned. I’m a doctor–I’m going to borrow a term from medicine, we’d call this Congressional malpractice.
At some point, the problem begins to build upon itself. Currently a fifth of tax revenue is used to pay interest on the debt. That is more than we spend on the national defense. Let me say that again. Right now, we’re paying more paying back people who lent us money than we are spending to keep our country safe, including paying our troops.
There is an historian, Niall Ferguson, who says that this is the mark of a country in decline. Paying more on interest than you are on defense.
Just last summer when he was still in the private sector, Treasury Secretary Bessent made a similar point in a Fox News op-ed.
He wrote that “America’s next national security crisis is lurking in our pocketbooks.”
That “our escalating debt crisis hurts national security in three key takeaways: it diminishes our financial ‘surge capacity,’ it robs our private sector of capital for productive investment, and it imperils America’s preeminent role in international financial markets.”
Secretary Bessent is right–this is a threat to our national security and to the economic security of the American family.
And families planning their budget know this. That’s why they live within their means. We should learn from them.
Let’s discuss the budget resolution before us. To be sure, this resolution only sets up the discussion on the reconciliation bill. The reconciliation bill is where we will actually establish how much is spent and where it is spent. Nonetheless, this points in a direction and establishes an approach.
Let me address my colleagues here about the process that has led up to this point. There has been a lot of Washington debate about using current policy versus the current law as baseline in this budget resolution. Current policy has never been used as baseline involving this much money in a reconciliation bill.
The practical consequences of this is that using current policy increases the cost of this bill by $3.8 trillion. That is the difference between the red dotted line and the solid red line on this chart.
I have discussed this extensively with my Senate colleagues. There is a commitment from the President Trump and the White House to work with senators to go through the budget line by line to see where there can be savings.
The White House and Congress will work together to decrease the regulatory hassle that keeps our economy from achieving its full potential. This will increase revenue.
The president is working extremely hard now to make government work more efficiently, which saves taxpayers money.
I have been assured that there is a commitment in other ways to pay for an eventual reconciliation bill.
I am not saying that I think it is better that we use current policy as baseline. It establishes a dangerous precedent. It might be within the rules to do so, but it doesn’t mean that it is wise to do so. And to be a conservative is to know that sometimes you don’t open Pandora’s box, even if you can.
And using current policy as baseline should not suggest to us that the current tax code is perfect. Far from it. According to publicly available information, Jeff Bezos got a child tax credit several years ago. Tax credits are supposed to go to middle income and lower income Americans, not to the second richest man in the world. Certainly, we can address that.
But this vote is not taking place in a vacuum. It is taking place when the stock market has had two successive days of greater than 1500 points decline. This creates uncertainty which makes companies less likely to invest, which makes it less likely that new jobs will be created. Creating new good paying jobs is an essential to achieving the American dream. Not passing this budget resolution could increase the uncertainty in the economy, and that is something I do not wish to do.
Given the commitment from leadership to pay for this bill by a variety of means, whether it is within the reconciliation vehicle or outside of that process, and the need to reestablish confidence among those making business decisions and creating jobs, I will vote for this budget resolution.
As we move on from this budget resolution to the reconciliation bill, I will look to make sure that we are truly addressing the national debt.
I will also encourage the use of America’s abundance as a way to both increase the possibility of Americans achieve the American dream and as a way to potentially pay for the government we now have. I applaud President Trump for advocating greater exploration of oil and gas. This creates great paying jobs, a tax base for communities, and significant revenue for the federal government. This is just one example of using America’s abundance for the benefit of us all.
I proposed other solutions that can address our nations indebtedness without raising taxes are cutting benefits. I have spoken to these in the past and will continue to advocate for them in the future.
I want America to be great for all Americans. That we can all live to the limits of our God given gifts. Creating opportunity is part of this. I hope, my expectation is that through this process we will create more opportunity to express God-given gifts, to achieve the American dream.
With that I yield.
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