10/14/13 Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.) Friday issued the following statement after voting against legislation to increase the nation’s $16.7 trillion debt ceiling for one year without any commitment to spending reductions or structural reforms:
“Allowing debt to continue accumulating unchecked on our nation’s credit card ignores the reality of America’s dire financial state,” said Coats. “With our national debt currently sitting at over $16.7 trillion dollars and the federal government borrowing $40,000 per second, we cannot afford another short-term Band-Aid. Any increase in the debt limit must be tied to substantive reforms that address the drivers of our debt.”
The Senate failed to invoke cloture by a vote of 53 to 45, with 60 votes necessary for cloture.
Friday, in a speech on the Senate floor, Coats called on Congress to work together on a large-scale budget agreement. Below are two excerpts from his remarks:
“I stand with those who simply say: I want to find a solution to the larger problem, including the shutdown of the government. I am focusing my efforts on the debt limit because it is very hard to ask the American people for yet another trillion dollars of debt without some effort to address why this debt is being accumulated. Why has the Congress not stepped up to address this spending?”
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“It is like having a credit card and the bank calls and says you have hit your spending limit. You have asked us several times in the past to raise that limit, and we have done so, but you keep reaching the limit and you keep asking for more credit. At what point are you going to amend your reckless spending so you do not have to keep coming in here and so we do not have to keep giving you more credit?”
