The 60 Second Update with

Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis

4. Is the President going to get serious about paying down the national debt?

One of the byproducts of a budget deficit is that the government has to borrow to spend money that it does not have. The President’s budget does not make a serious attempt to pay down our debt and actually underestimates how bad it will get under his spending policies. The Congressional Budget Office has determined that the debt associated with the Obama budget is $2 trillion higher than the Administration had suggested.

I will openly admit that President Bush and the Republican Congress spent far too much. In President Bush’s 8-year tenure, debt rose by $4.9 trillion. But President Obama’s budget will increase the debt by $5.6 trillion – in just 3 years. It will also double the debt held by the public in less than 6 years – and nearly triple it in ten years. Under this budget, debt held by the public will this year reach 56.8 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It will continue to rise throughout the 10-year period, hitting an unprecedented 82.4% of GDP by 2019.

The last time debt exceeded 50 percent of GDP was in 1956. I was two years old and we were in the middle of the baby boom generation. But the debt was declining steeply at that time. Today, the debt is climbing rapidly, and those 80 million baby boomers are beginning to leave the taxpaying workforce to collect Medicare and Social Security benefits. If we act wisely, and responsibly, we can turn things around. But if we follow the path the President’s budget lays out, we will be digging a hole so deep we may just bury the hopes and dreams of America’s next generation.

 Question 5. Should the United States bailout the IMF?