Blame won't pay the bills

As you may know, the House of Representatives just passed H.R. 4314, a bill to raise the amount of debt that the United States can legally issue in your name. This bill raises the "debt ceiling" by an additional $290 billion dollars.

This will allow the government to issue enough debt in your name to fund the Democrats' programs for several months. By the end of next year, unless the spending is scaled back, the majority will have to raise the debt ceiling another $1.5 trillion.

The debt ceiling has been raised dozens of times in the last 100 years, but the rate of increase has gone way beyond alarming.

When the Democrats took control of Congress after the 2006 elections, your share of the national debt stood at $29,000. By the end of next year, that figure will reach $45,000. Both political parties seem to take great satisfaction in blaming the other party for causing the debt to rise to its current level. It is only fair and honest to blame both. While it is important to know that raising non-defense spending by 85 percent in last three years as the Democrats have done has made the problem much worse.

This cycle must end and blame won't pay the bills.

The United States is currently paying $250 billion per year in interest payments alone. The $290 billion increase in the debt ceiling the majority just passed will only cover the nation's interest payments. That is $290 billion of our hard-earned money that will not be invested in our country, in our military, in our infrastructure or anything else of value to you.

Instead, that money will flow out of your pockets and into the coffers of the Chinese government - now the single largest holder of U.S. debt. It may seem abstract to some, and these bills may pass without much attention from the press, but I assure you, the fiscal state of this country and the actions taken by this majority will affect you and your family for years to come.

Rest assured that I stand ready to work with my colleagues to make the tough choices, to correct the mistakes and to return this country to fiscal sanity.

U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite

Brooksville