On the recordMay 31, 2011
I think those of us who are Members of Congress or within the Beltway understand that this is a political thing that's going on at one of the most serious financial times that our Nation is facing. I only wonder whether or not our friends and creditors abroad, or those that respect the United States and even try to follow our fiscal ways in thinking that this is the strongest country in the entire world--for them to follow what we are doing, it is an embarrassment to the House, as well as the Senate, that the President of the United States of America would ask that our country be safe from a fiscal point of view by allowing the traditional increase in the debt ceiling. Notwithstanding the political differences we had, we come together as a Nation, not to play games on each other for political reasons, but we come together as a symbol for the free world to understand that if it's the United States of America, you can depend on us. But now on the suspension calendar--which is an insult to those people who have studied the Constitution--in the House of Representatives, which is reserved for noncontroversial issues, when the whole world knows that this is controversial and is certainly not a subject that should be on a calendar called the suspension calendar. So we still have some time to rehabilitate ourselves. I don't know how more ridiculous we can get, but I do hope that we avoid this in the future.
