Michael Bennet: “I am going to replace the Presiding Officer in the chair in a few moments, but before that, I wished to come to the…”

“I am going to replace the Presiding Officer in the chair in a few moments, but before that, I wished to come to the floor and talk about our economy and some work this Congress needs to be engaged in if we are going to get things moving on the right track again. Today, the stock market plunged 400 points because of concerns that are going on in Europe, especially with Italy. It is a debt crisis that has been on the front page of every newspaper around the globe for weeks and in some cases months. I am reminded of the discussion we had over the summer that consumed the Congress for an entire summer, about the lifting of the debt ceiling. Article after article after article said that if the Congress couldn't figure out how to work this out in a bipartisan way and make a material difference in the trajectory of our deficit and our debt that, for the first time, our credit rating would be downgraded. For the first time in the history of the United States of America, the full faith and credit of the United States would be called into question. That was on the front page of every newspaper for weeks. In the end, we stumbled across that finish line, and in the end our debt was downgraded. I would argue we are about to face the same thing again and have the chance again to do the right thing--to act in a bipartisan way, to create a thoughtful approach to our debt and our deficit that allows us to continue to invest in our economy.…”