George Miller: “I think we should also be aware of the fact that not only is it the actual default that could cause economic havoc, but…”

“I think we should also be aware of the fact that not only is it the actual default that could cause economic havoc, but the discussion of it and the anticipation of it. Millions of Americans have personal loans at the bank, credit card loans at the bank or their credit union, what have you, they have the mortgages on their home that are tied to indexing and to indexing averages that are tied to the interest rates on various indexes. When you take the best credit rating in the world, which is the United States of America, it is what all other credit is rated according to. When that moves on a daily basis because of the uncertainty, because of the potential risk, whether we ever default or not, you have already cost homeowners, credit card borrowers, you have already cost them money because the average is higher than it would have otherwise been over the 30-, 60-, 90-day period of time. When they reconfigure your adjustable rate mortgage or your credit card or your home mortgage, it will be higher or not as low as it might have been when we see interest rates dropping as we have seen over the last couple of months. So, bumping around that index, every day the Republicans threaten to impeach the Secretary of Treasury, they threaten to shut down the Government, they threaten to default on the debt, to expose our credit rating to this kind of questioning, you pay instantly as a homeowner, as a person out looking and using consumer debt in this country.”