The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS” mentioning Rick Scott was published in the Senate section on pages S4019-S4020 on June 9.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. SCOTT of Florida (for himself, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Braun, Mr.
Barrasso, Ms. Ernst, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Tuberville, Mr.
Johnson, and Ms. Lummis):
S. 1990. A bill to establish processes to control inflationary pressures and the Federal debt, during Federal debt emergencies; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, America is in a debt crisis. It appears, for Joe Biden and my colleagues across the aisle, reckless spending has only just begun. If left unchecked, this spending will be devastating for families in my State of Florida and all across our great Nation.
Washington's insane spending has our Federal debt rocketing toward
$30 trillion. That is equal to $233,000 of debt for every American family. Think about that. America's debt crisis, caused by decades of wasteful and reckless spending by Washington politicians, has now grown to the equivalent of every American family owing a quarter of a million dollars in debt. Yet Biden and my colleagues across the aisle want more
President Biden is pushing for trillions in wasteful spending, raising the U.S. Federal debt by 60 percent, to $39 trillion, and the debt-to-GDP ratio to 117 percent in 2030, the highest level ever recorded in American history.
Enough is enough. It is time to end the madness.
Today I am introducing the Federal Debt Emergency Control Act to help bring some accountability back to Washington.
On July 31, the current suspension of the Federal debt ceiling is set to expire, giving Congress a choice: Act responsibly to reduce Federal debt through structural reform to how we approach spending or suspend the debt ceiling again, allowing more reckless spending that will cripple our Nation with insurmountable debt.
Reckless spending has consequences. We are already seeing rising inflation. Let's remember, inflation doesn't hurt the rich, but it devastates our poorest families. It hurts families like mine growing up. It hurts poor families. It hurts people on fixed incomes. Just look around us. Milk prices are up. Bread prices are up. Gas prices are up. Meat prices are up. It seems like everything is up right now.
When inflation happened in the seventies, I watched. I watched what my parents went through. At that point, my mom was taking in ironing from other families to make ends meet. At the end of the day, whatever she had made that day, either my older brother or I would go to the grocery store, and we would watch--and she was worried about milk and food, all of the prices going up. She said, ``You only have this amount of money,'' and we had to know what everything cost before we went to the checkout counter.
It is not fair. No family should have to go through worrying about the price of bread and milk and things going up week after week.
We can get control of inflation. We can put our Nation on a fiscally responsible path, but we have to have real solutions that hold Congress accountable.
My Federal Debt Emergency Control Act aims to rein in Washington's out-of-control spending with concrete checks and balances, including the declaration of a Federal debt emergency anytime the debt exceeds 100 percent of GDP.
By the way, once debt equals 100 percent of GDP, it is very difficult to start paying down debt. You have to dramatically either reduce spending or dramatically grow your economy.
Declaring a Federal debt emergency would initiate commonsense debt reduction measures, including a requirement that two-thirds of Congress vote to increase the debt before approving any bill with deficit spending.
It would also terminate any unobligated funding for the American Rescue Plan Act and any previous stimulus bills, sending it back to the Treasury General Fund for deficit reduction to reduce our debt.
Finally, it would ensure that any bill reducing the Federal debt by at least 5 percent over 10 years is fast-tracked through the legislative process.
Everyone can get behind these commonsense measures. That is why my bill is already endorsed by the National Taxpayers Union, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and Club for Growth.
I am also proud to have the support of Senators Cruz, Braun, Blackburn, Johnson, Barrasso, Ernst, and Tuberville as cosponsors of this important legislation.
With President Biden's budget proposal--and just to put that in perspective, his budget proposal is $6 trillion. This year, our Federal receipts are only going to be $3.5 trillion. How can we expect to run trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of deficit year after year? With his budget proposal, we see how important the need is to get Washington's awful spending habits under control and start paying down our debt.
I did it before. I did it as Governor of Florida. I walked in with a
$4 billion deficit. I started reducing taxes my first year. We reduced it every year in 8 years, and we cut over a third of the State debt. We did it by being responsible, by holding government accountable for watching how we spent every dollar. It can be done.
So getting back on track is possible, but it takes discipline. It takes accountability. It starts with taking concrete steps, like rejecting bloated budgets and passing commonsense legislation like the Federal Debt Emergency Control Act. We have the chance to do this. We know the vote over the debt ceiling increase is a tough vote for everybody. Let's take this opportunity to have real structural reform so we can start paying down our debt and not leave this debt to future generations
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