On the recordJuly 28, 2011
I thank my colleague from Iowa for the question. I concur in his findings. I haven't found one either. Democrats know we have different views on this side of the aisle, and many of us would write deficit-reduction bills differently than some others of us would. But we realize that to let the debt ceiling lapse would be a disaster to not raise it. So I have not heard of a single Democrat who has said the debt ceiling ought to lapse, and I have heard scores of Republicans, elected, official Republicans and thousands of others and groups in that rightwing firmament pushing their members to let this debt ceiling lapse. My guess is--and God forbid it happens; and we are doing everything we can to prevent it from happening--they will retract that language or they will find ways to explain what they meant because their analysis that it doesn't matter or it will not do much harm is, unfortunately, dead wrong.
