Political Quotes

“now on debt limit, of course, once we fund the government, we still need to address the urgent matter of extending the debt ceiling and preserving the full faith and credit of the United States. To paraphrase the economist Austan Goolsbee, who just met with our caucus this morning, throughout history, there have certainly been governments that have defaulted on their debt, but never has there been a default caused by pure stupidity--in this case, Republican stupidity. Well, Democrats are working to prevent such an outcome from happening now. Over the past week, our caucus has tried to find a workable solution to avoid default on our sovereign debt, but the Republicans have stymied us at every opportunity. On Monday, we considered a continuing resolution which, among other things, would have extended the debt ceiling until the end of 2022, allowing us to pay for the debt incurred by the previous administration. Republicans unanimously voted in favor of default. So, on Tuesday, we gave Republicans another chance. We offered to solve the debt ceiling impasse by doing exactly what Republicans claimed they wanted all along: Raise it with only Democratic votes. We gave them a chance to oppose it, like they said they would, and allow Democrats to solve this problem ourselves. Again, it was precisely what they asked for. And Leader McConnell cited this precedent several times in the last few days as to how to get out of the debt crisis.…”