John W. Olver: “Today we face an unnecessary crisis. The debt limit has never before been held hostage by any political party, because…”

“Today we face an unnecessary crisis. The debt limit has never before been held hostage by any political party, because it is in every American's best interest to protect the credit of the United States; but now ideologues in Congress have hijacked this issue, and have pushed our Nation to the brink of default in rejecting all offers of compromise. Calls for massive spending cuts, and spending cuts alone, without raising any revenues whatsoever are irresponsible at least and deliberately destructive at worst. They would default on our debt, causing a global financial crisis, rather than see hedge fund managers, corporate jet owners or phenomenally profitable oil companies pay higher taxes. Their call for fiscal responsibility rings hollow, and the fiscal history of the last three decades shows that. This chart shows the growth of America's national debt since 1980. At the end of the Carter administration, the national debt was less than $1 trillion. Twelve years later, with President Reagan's 8 years and the first President Bush's 4 years, the national debt had grown by more than 300 percent--it had quadrupled--and we were mired in debt. The Reagan-Bush economic policies greatly increased the debt and led to soaring deficits and rising interest rates. It ended in a recession. In 1993, President Clinton was under severe pressure from the very Republicans who had meekly followed the two Republican Presidents as they raised the national debt by over 300 percent.…”