Congressional Black Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. VEASEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the time to thank my friend from New York and the gentleman from Nevada for helping to put together this special hour on what is really important in this country. We know just how vital and vibrant we want our economy to be, and it is hard to do that if we are not taking care of our credit. I appreciate both of these gentlemen for taking this hour to talk about this.

I would also like to thank my colleague from Texas, Sheila Jackson Lee, who spoke so eloquently on so many different areas in government that would be affected if we were to have a shutdown and how the Affordable Care Act is helping Americans--helping working Americans do better.

Whether you are from Houston, where she lives, or the north Texas area where I am from, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, people are concerned. People are starting to get very worried about the very dangerous prospect of approaching the legal debt limit since we are only 3 days away from default.

In 2011, the credit agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history. S&P said this back then:

The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.

Now, following that particular downgrade, it is estimated that job growth took a 28 percent nosedive. Can we afford a 28 percent nosedive right now? I think not.

This also cost Americans more than 200,000 jobs right when we are starting to do better. The economy is starting to be kicked into motion from what was a very bad period over the last several years. We can't afford 200,000 jobs right now. We have to do everything we can to get ourselves out of the situation that we are in right now.

Also important is that consumer confidence dropped to levels mirroring those during the Great Recession, which had a negative impact on economic activity. The GAO found that taxpayers paid $1.3 billion in additional interest. Let me repeat that: the GAO found that hardworking taxpayers paid $1.3 billion in additional interest costs because of the delayed 2011 debt limit increase. Is that what we want, the hardworking taxpayers of our country to have to pay additional taxes because we can't get our act together, because Republicans can't get their act together on the debt ceiling?

Two years after S&P's bleak assessment and the clear economic data, here we are again brought to the brink. We must be clear on what exactly the debt limit is and what it is not. Increasing the debt limit does not increase the Federal debt. It does not give a blank check to our government to spend all it wants. Increasing the debt limit will simply allow the Federal Government to pay bills that Congress has already accrued.

Some of the payments that the Federal Government must make are interest payments on Treasury bonds, Social Security and Medicare benefits, military Active Duty pay, retirement and VA benefits. If the Tea Party refuses to allow the government to honor these financial obligations that are so dear to many Americans, to our family members, to people in our communities, then investors will likely lose faith in the government and demand higher interest rates for Treasury bonds. We cannot allow our country to become a deadbeat Nation that doesn't pay its bills.

Let's move beyond these silly, partisan games. We have the American economy at stake here. And more importantly, we have the economic livelihood of every American in our hand. The full faith and credit of the United States should not be up for negotiation. It is time for Congress to raise the debt limit--like they have in the past so many times before--and for Republicans to end their losing game of brinksmanship and realize that they are damaging American lives every day.

Let's do more for the hardworking taxpayers in our country that make our country great.

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