By Gary Pitts
Murray, KY – US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says the biggest challenge our country faces is the national debt. Ketucky's senior Senator spoke before the Murray-Calloway County Chamber of Commerce today at the CFSB center. He says that under the guidance of President Obama, America has followed western Europe into dire economic straits.
"We have a debt as big as our economy. Economists will tell you that makes you look a lot like Greece. And that doesn't take into account over $50 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities. That is promises we've made that we aren't going to be able to keep down the road in very popular entitlement programs; Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, the health care program for low income people."
McConnell says that the recent debt will help to alleviate some of the problem. He is also optimistic that the bipartisan congressional super committee slated with reaching an agreement on entitlement reform will succeed.
"Well we've put triggers in there that are really nasty. In fact the triggers are so nasty and would generate such Draconian cuts across the board that we don't think there's any chance they're going to clog up, and not reach an agreement. We wanted to make failure not an option."
McConnell says the committee is slated to present a plan to congress before Thanksgiving. Any proposal will require a simple majority vote in the Senate to pass.