Jeff Merkley: “If I could just emphasize the point the Senator from Montana just made, there are those who say they want to engage in a…”

“If I could just emphasize the point the Senator from Montana just made, there are those who say they want to engage in a default strategy because they think it will somehow do something positive in controlling our deficit and controlling our debt, but what the Senator from Montana pointed out is that when you engage in using default as a weapon, you reduce revenues, increase costs, which increases deficits and increases the debt. I think what we can summarize is not only is the default strategy severely damaging to families and businesses across the country, but it is damaging to the effort to reduce our deficits and reduce our debt.”