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I know that my Republican colleagues are as ashamed as I am that the United States is forced to borrow over $1 trillion from foreign nations to pay for our national priorities like reconstruction of the gulf coast and the war in Iraq.

To finance this trade deficit, the U.S. has to borrow from the rest of the world or sell American assets like stocks, businesses, and real estate to the rest of the world.

The money the president wants to borrow for Iraq will come directly out of the American taxpayer wallets in the form of Medicare and Social Security receipts. That's your money.

It took the first 204 years of our Nation's history to accumulate $1 trillion in debt. And now we are doing that every 2 or 3 years.

Essentially, when we run a deficit, we are borrowing money to buy things that are made overseas.

The amount of U.S. debt held by countries such as China and Japan is at a historic high, with foreign investors holding half of America's publicly held debt. This dependence raises the specter that other nations will be able to influence our policies in ways antithetical to American interests.

President Obama has almost doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing. And yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World condition, and forty-three million Americans are on food stamps.

Republicans spend and borrow, Democrats tax and spend.

When George W. Bush entered office, the national debt was $5 trillion. When he left, it was $10 trillion. I think the administration spent too much money.

We have managed to acquire $13 trillion of debt on our balance sheet. In my view we have nothing to show for it. We haven't invested in our roads, our bridges, our waste-water systems, our sewer systems. We haven't even maintained the assets that our parents and grandparents built for us.