John Cornyn: “I come to the floor on the 1,414th day since the Senate has passed a budget and on a day where, amazingly, the President…”

“I come to the floor on the 1,414th day since the Senate has passed a budget and on a day where, amazingly, the President of the United States is reported to have said: ``We don't have an immediate crisis in terms of [our] debt.'' Well, we do have a debt crisis that threatens both future generations--because somebody is going to have to pay that debt back, and thanks to abnormally low interest rates, right now they are not spiraling out of control, but if interests rates were to return to historic norms, I believe for each additional percentage point in interest we would have to pay on our national debt, it would result in roughly $1.7 trillion more we would have to pay back. So in many ways the United States is lucky, even though we are on the brink of what scholars such as Reinhart and Rogoff have said--we are on the precipice of a debt crisis because once interest rates begin to rise, the creditors lose confidence in our ability to repay that debt, and our economy spins out of control, resulting not only in a severe recession or worse but also harm to some of the most vulnerable people in our society who depend on the safety net that government provides. It is also, in a debt crisis, impossible for the Federal Government to do what it must do in terms of national security. Indeed, that is what led the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, to say that the single greatest threat to our national security is our debt.…”