Political Quotes

“I want to thank my colleagues Congressmen Jeffries and Congressman Horsford for once again leading the Congressional Black Caucus Special Order Hour. As a result of your leadership, the Congressional Black Caucus continues to discuss critical issues facing our nation on the House floor and to the American people. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss why we must raise our nation's debt ceiling and bring a clean debt ceiling bill to the floor. The full faith and credit of the United States should not be subject to negotiation. On Friday, February 7th, the United States of America once again reached its debt limit. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has again begun paying our bills with what he calls ``extraordinary measures.'' This is not a new situation for us, as we have been here many times before. And we have seen that each time we face this fully preventable crisis, the result is harm to the American people and to this nation's international economic reputation. In August 2011, Members of Congress faced a debt ceiling standoff that resulted in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Because we could not come to a budget agreement as required by the Budget Control Act, Congress instituted automatic spending cuts to our military and to critical services to our communities. In October 2013, we faced another debt limit crisis when our government shut down for 17 days, leaving hundreds of thousands of government workers unsure of when their next paycheck would arrive.…”