Max Baucus: “frankly, I think the fundamental question facing us is, Are we going to pay our bills? That is the question before us…”

“frankly, I think the fundamental question facing us is, Are we going to pay our bills? That is the question before us today. On the amendment offered by the Senator from South Dakota, I suspect the chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Dodd, will have something to say about that when we come back into session tomorrow. But the fundamental question we are facing with the debt limit extension resolution is, Are we going to pay our bills? We have incurred obligations. We have, as a country. Are we going to pay them? Are we going to pay our bills? That is the basic question. Are we going to live up to our commitment to pay our bills? The discussion here quite correctly is somewhat--not correctly. The subject has moved over to, well, gee, aren't our deficits too high? Haven't we been spending too much compared with the revenue we are taking in? Yes. There is no one here who would argue the point that our deficits are too high. That is right. They are what they are partly because of the recession we are in, the subprime mortgage crisis that somewhat prompted all the problems we face as a country, a lot of loose lending by lots of institutions, packaging of obligations, of loans, and securitizing those loans, all the fees earned by banks and so forth. Pretty soon, all the mortgages became if not worthless, at least not worth very much at all.…”