Bayh calls for solution to ballooning debt
WASHINGTON – Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., has aligned himself with a group of senators who say they won’t vote for an increase in the U.S. debt limit unless they also get to vote on a proposal to create a commission to deal with long-term budget problems.
Bayh wants a commission that would come up with ways to cut spending or increase income and then present the package to Congress. Lawmakers would have to vote “yes” or “no” on the full package without the ability to amend it.
At a Budget Committee hearing Tuesday, Bayh said members of Congress who like himself are former governors are “no strangers to having to make difficult decisions and sometimes say no even if it’s not popular because it’s in the long-term interests of our country.”
Bayh said the typical way Congress works “is the path to national weakness.”
Another former governor, Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, also advocated for the commission because “Congress is not willing to take short-term pain for long-term gain. Period.”
In a letter to the Senate leadership last week, a group led by Bayh encouraged a vote on the creation of the commission be tied to the debt-limit vote. Tuesday, Bayh made it clear he won’t support a higher debt limit unless the commission vote is conducted.
The Treasury Department said that by the end of the year, the government will default on its debt unless Congress increases the $12.1 trillion debt ceiling.
The debt limit is the federal equivalent of the borrowing limit an individual has on a Visa or MasterCard account. The government may only borrow up to that amount unless Congress and the president agree to legislation increasing it.
Voinovich called the U.S. government “the worst credit card abuser in the world.”
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the Budget Committee, said two-thirds of the nation’s debt is held by foreign countries or entities.
“We owe China $800 billion,” he said. “We owe Japan $730 billion.”
