Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) spoke on the House floor against the continued political gamesmanship and obstructionism around a congressional increase of the debt ceiling.  He called for a simple vote on increasing the debt limit and a return to working on creating jobs, restoring the economy, and solving the day-to-problems of constituents.

“Mr. Speaker, this country is in the middle of a great crisis,” said Nadler.  “Entirely an artificial crisis, created by the attempt of one political party to blackmail the entire country into adopting its program of destroying Medicare and Social Security and food stamps and unemployment and all the things that many of our people depend on…. [W]e should raise the debt ceiling to recognize the debts that are already incurred, and we should do it cleanly so as to not throw the economy into a tail spin.”

Click HERE for video of Nadler’s remarks.  The following is the complete text:

“Mr. Speaker, this country is in the middle of a great crisis.  Entirely an artificial crisis, created by the attempt of one political party to blackmail the entire country into adopting its program of destroying Medicare and Social Security and food stamps and unemployment and all the things that many of our people depend on.

“But, why do I say it’s an artificial crisis?  Because the debt ceiling increase is something we normally do.  Seven times during President Bush’s administration.  Some people think that to raise the debt ceiling is to say that we are going to borrow and spend more.  No, it’s not.  You raise the debt ceiling in order to pay for bills you already incurred because of the decisions made two and three and five years ago, mostly during the Bush administration.

“Not to raise the debt ceiling is like going into an expensive restaurant, having an expensive meal, and then getting the bill and saying, ‘Oh my G-d, I’ve got too much money on my credit card, I don’t think I’ll pay the bill.’  Well, if that’s the case, you shouldn’t have had the meal.  If you don’t want to pay the bill, you shouldn’t have made those budget decisions.  You shouldn’t have cut those taxes 10 years ago and gotten into those wars seven and eight years ago, and made the other decisions that piled up the deficit.

“If you want to have a debate, which we should, on how to change our policies in the future, that’s for the budget debate.  We’re going to pass a budget at some point – we ought to debate tax levels, expenditure levels – but, instead, what are they doing?  They’re saying, ‘that’s a nice economy you got there, pity if something should happen to it – and if you don’t do exactly what we want, we’re going to destroy it.’

“By not raising the debt ceiling, we would cause a collapse in credit so that everybody’s interests rates go up and people would have to pay $1,000 more a month on their mortgage, because there is a ripple right throughout the economy.  A default would be a real crisis for the economy, and it would cost the economy an extra trillion dollars in extra deficit spending over the next 10 years just in higher interests costs.  But, if we don’t do exactly what they want – to destroy Medicare and Social Security and the other things they’ve never liked in the first place – they will wreck the economy by not raising the debt ceiling, in order to not pay the bills that they incurred.

“Then we hear that we have a deficit crisis, that, after all, the country is broke, the country is broke, we have to cut the budget.  Even the President says the country is broke.  We’ve got to cut the budget – a little less savagely – but we still have to cut the budget.

“Wrong. 

“The country is not broke.  It is just that we are not taxing the millionaires, and the billionaires, and the big corporations the way we used to.  In 1950, the corporations paid 6% of the GDP in corporate taxes.  Today, it is under 1%.  Twenty years ago, 30% of all income taxes came from corporations.  Today, it is under 6%.  And that is why the middle class feels overtaxed – because they are. 

“Because we don’t tax the millionaires and the billionaires the way we used to; we don’t tax the corporations the way we used to – the big multinationals I’m talking about, not the small businesses.  Instead, we shifted the tax burden to the middle class, and we don’t get enough tax revenue.  The fact of the matter is that, if you look at the budget of 2001 – and compare it to the budget of 2011 – in 2001, the budget was $258 billion in surplus.  It was the last Clinton budget.

“How has it changed?  How has it changed?  Why is this budget $1.2 trillion in deficit?  What’s changed?

“Well, adjusted for inflation and for population growth, non-defense discretionary spending – everything they want to cut now – hasn’t changed at all: $369 billion then and $369 billion now. 

“What’s changed?  Well, defense spending and homeland security spending have gone up 74% because of two wars and a lot of bloat.  A 74% increase in defense spending.

“Mandatory programs – that is to say, Medicare, Social Security, Veterans programs –  are up 32%.  As well as unemployment insurance – mostly because we are in a recession, and you have to pay more unemployment insurance and food stamps and so forth.

“Total revenues down 24%.  From a bigger country, we are getting 24% less revenue today.  Why?  Because, in 2001, the tax collected was 20% of GDP, and today it is 14.5% of GDP. 

“So, what should we be doing?  Well, first of all, we should raise the debt ceiling to recognize the debts that are already incurred, and we should do it cleanly so as to not throw the economy into a tail spin.  Then we should debate all the issues in the budget.  We should raise taxes on the millionaires, the billionaires, the corporations, cut defense, and not try to tamper with people’s Social Security, and Medicare, and the things they depend on.”

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