On the recordOctober 29, 2013
I want to thank my colleague for yielding time to me. I rise in opposition to this resolution, but I am strongly in favor of the process that we are using to deal with the debt limit. There is a difference. If this resolution to force an unprecedented default passes both this House and the Senate, the President can decide to sign it or not. Even if he doesn't sign it, Congress will have another opportunity to stop a debt ceiling raise. This is a process that the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, first suggested in 2011 and has been used in debt limit bills to avoid defaulting since. It is good enough to use right now, it has been good enough to use for 2 years, and it is good enough to help us avoid these manufactured crises on a permanent basis. This is a process that helps us separate the true need for congressional intervention on the debt limit from those that are manufactured and motivated by politics. This is a process that works and helps us avoid unnecessary pain. We should never have a replay of the hostage-taking and brinksmanship that we recently went through to get to this point. We know what we have to do, and we know we should not be playing games with the debt limit. That is why I offer a bill that would make this process permanent and keep this Nation fiscally solvent. Senators Boxer, Schumer, and Hirono introduced this very same bill today in the Senate. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
