Todd Tiahrt: “Mr. Chairman, there is a lot of talk about raising the national debt limit here; and I just want to point out, first of…”

“Mr. Chairman, there is a lot of talk about raising the national debt limit here; and I just want to point out, first of all, that I have in my hand the supplemental bill right here. It has nothing to do with raising the national debt. In fact, if my colleagues want to know what is in the bill, they can simply get the report portion and they can read the highlights on pages 1 and 2; and it outlines very nicely about how we are going to address the needs of our Department of Defense, of our Department of Transportation, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and so on, things that are very necessary at this point in time. I think it is important that we point that out. It is not in the supplemental bill. Where all of this confusion is coming from from the other side came from the rule. Now, in the rule it says nothing about owing $750 billion or borrowing $750 billion, or robbing Social Security, or any environmental issues about a river in Oregon. What it does say, very simply, on page 3 in the rule, or the report on the rule, it says, section 1403 provides statutory assurance that the United States Government will take all necessary steps to guarantee the full faith and credit of the Government.”