{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://stewart.house.gov//media-center/press-releases/national-debt-passes-18-trillion-stewart-urges-house-colleagues-to-act", "National Debt Passes $18 Trillion, Stewart Urges House Colleagues to Act", "2014-12-03", "2014", "2014-12", "Republican", "House", "UT", "Chris Stewart", "S001192", "stewart.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, D.C.\u00a0\u2013 With the national debt now surpassing $18 Trillion\u00a0\u2014\u00a0over $153,000 of debt per American taxpayer\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Rep. Chris Stewart (R\u2013Utah) delivered a speech on the House Floor, urging his congressional colleagues to help restore fiscal responsibility by reforming the tax code, balancing the budget, reforming entitlement spending, and holding the president and his federal agencies accountable for taxpayer\u2019s money.\n\u201cNow is the time to restore fiscal sanity,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cWe must reclaim that moral and fiscal discipline which created the American Dream so many years ago.\u00a0We must undergo real tax reform, reign in entitlement spending, balance our budgets and hold the President and his federal agencies accountable for the people\u2019s money.\u00a0I urge my colleagues to join me in this fight to restore fiscal stability.\"\nThe video of the speech can be found HERE.\nThe full text of the speech is below:\n\"I am discouraged to stand here and announce a milestone that we reached recently, a very discouraging milestone. Our nation has now surpassed $18 Trillion in debt. And if you want to know how much money that is, take every American taxpayer from the young man who just got his first job, to every mother and father who are struggling to take care of their families and give them a bill of more than $150,000.\"\n\"It\u2019s simply unsustainable. If we continue down this current path, we will commit fiscal national suicide through our spending and our debt.\"\n\"Remember that a nation that is bankrupt cannot provide for the security of its people. A nation that is bankrupt cannot provide for the needy among them.\u00a0 A nation that is bankrupt cannot provide for the children of the next generation. Now is the time to restore fiscal sanity.\"\n\"We must have the courage to reclaim the American Dream. We must undergo real tax reform, entitlement reform and balance our budgets. We must have the courage to make these a reality.\"\n\"We can fix this, and we must fix this. I hope we will have the courage to do this, even if it is hard. And with that Mr. Speaker, I yield back.\"", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://stewart.house.gov//media-center/press-releases/national-debt-passes-18-trillion-stewart-urges-house-colleagues-to-act"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8974880911409855, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}