VIDEO: Peters Returns to Senate Floor to Highlight Urgent Need to Address Growing National Debt

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Gary Peters (MI) returned to the Senate floor to give his second speech in a series of remarks focused on the importance of addressing the growing national debt. The speech, which comes after Peters reminded Americans of the country’s unsustainable fiscal trajectory in July, outlined actions by Congress in recent decades that have contributed to the growing national debt. In the speech, Peters highlights a recent Congressional Budget Office estimate that shows the federal deficit for this year alone has already passed $2 trillion, the third largest deficit ever accrued in a single fiscal year behind only the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“To further put it into perspective, this debt has grown by $700 billion in just the six weeks since I spoke about this issue on the floor. That trajectory is incredibly alarming,” Peters said during the speech. “So, in this case, time is money, and time is running out. And as we approach our next government funding deadline, it’s important that we look back on how we got to this point, and what we can do about it.”

To watch the full video of Peters’ speech on the Senate floor, click here.

During the speech, Peters first highlighted past congressional actions that successfully lowered the deficit, including passing a bipartisan government funding package in 1996 and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which set enforceable budget caps. Together, these bills led to four years of budget surpluses.

“During that time, our economy grew. Unemployment and inflation rates reached their lowest levels since the 1960s,” Peters said. “Unfortunately, that was the first time since 1969 that our country had experienced a budget surplus, and unfortunately, we have not achieved it since. But the moral of this story is that progress is possible when we set politics aside, work in a bipartisan way, and enact commonsense solutions that benefit all of us.”

However, Peters noted that, in 2001, Congress and President George W. Bush then enacted a series of tax bills that ushered in the return of annual fiscal deficits.

“I certainly believe that a good tax bill is one that provides relief to middle-class families, which are the backbone our economy, and ensures that everyone pays their fair share,” Peters said in the speech. “But the tax cuts passed during the Bush era did just the opposite, largely benefitting the highest income earners in our country, and in the process, increased the federal debt by trillions of dollars.”

Peters continued by highlighting efforts made by Democrats in the years following to address the growing debt, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which Peters helped pass into law in 2023. The law made a nearly $250 billion downpayment on our debt while making important clean energy investments and lowering prescription drug costs for Americans. Yet, Peters underscored in his speech how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Republicans and President Trump recently passed into law will reverse this progress and add trillions more to the debt.

“Not only did this bill, that was passed here this past summer, kick millions of people off their healthcare and made it harder for families to put food on the table by cutting food assistance, it also added, let’s hear this, it also added $3.5 trillion to the federal deficit,” said Peters.

Peters continued, “Today, we stand at more than $37 trillion, all because my Republican colleagues are seemingly convinced that giving tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy will somehow, magically, benefit our nation as a whole. But time and time again, we’ve seen the same script yield the same results.”

Peters concluded the speech by highlighting the important opportunity Congress currently has to reverse these devastating economic impacts by working together to pass commonsense, bipartisan government funding bills that meet the needs of American communities.

“Failure to do so will mean economic catastrophe and a continuation of the trends of the past thirty years that we have just walked through. We can’t let that happen, and we must work to end these harmful patterns before it is too late,” said Peters.

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