Although the annual federal budget deficit is expected to hit $1.65 trillion this year and the national debt is already at $14.34 trillion, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said today he disagrees with House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) assessment that America is broke.
“America is not broke,” Hoyer said at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C.. “America has extraordinary resources and we can use those resources, both intellectual and financial, to get us to a place where we are again a fiscally sound nation, a fiscally balanced nation, and future generations are not at risk.”
As of May 20, 2011, the total public debt outstanding stood at $14.34 trillion, according to the Department of Treasury.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), in a February 2011 speech at the annual National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) convention, described the U.S. fiscal state as follows: “Now surpassing $14.1 trillion, our national debt is on track to eclipse the size of our entire economy this year. In other words, we’re broke. Broke, going on bankrupt.”
Boehner continued: “Just as a bankrupt business has trouble creating jobs, so does a bankrupt country. ... Yes, this debt is a mortal threat to our country. It is also a moral threat. It is immoral to bind our children to as leeching and destructive a force as debt.”
“It is immoral to rob our children’s future and make them beholden to China,” he said. “No society is worthy that treats its children so shabbily.”
