Arthur Ravenel: “Members have all heard about the straw that broke the camel's back. They just kept piling one straw on top of another…”

“Members have all heard about the straw that broke the camel's back. They just kept piling one straw on top of another straw, on top of another straw. And then, all of a sudden, the camel's back was broken. Well, what dollar is going to be the dollar that breaks the back of the Federal Government? If we do not get a handle on our deficit situation, let me tell Members what is going to happen. It happened on October 19, 1987, a lot of Members remember it, when all of a sudden for no apparent reason, the Dow just dropped out of bed and went on down and down and down. And when the bell rang, it was down 500 and 8 points. The next day, it went down 300 points more. And at 11:22, IBM, which at that time was the greatest common stock in the world, quit trading. The reason it quit trading was because there were no bettors. Let me tell Members what can happen, if we do not pass this balanced budget amendment, and it is coming, folks, I am telling Members, it is coming, one of these Monday mornings when the Treasury goes in there to refinance the debt and raise $200 million or $300 million more dollars to cover those checks that they sent out on Friday, something is going to happen in this country or somewhere in the world. And the bond market is going to fall out of bed. And all those government checks, retirees' checks, pension checks, contractors' checks, all the checks will start flipping all over the country like a bunch of rubber checks.”