Press Releases

(As prepared for delivery)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are here today to go through a rite of passage for new Republican majorities. They run on combatting inflation, and making the economy work for the American people. Only to take control and start calling for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in the name of fiscal responsibility. All while risking the full faith and credit of the United States and plotting unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected.

Today, they are bringing forth legislation that acknowledges they will put extremism before responsibility, potentially preventing the United States from paying its bills.

Debt prioritization is impossible, but that hasn’t stopped our colleagues before. So, congratulations are in order. You’ve officially joined the ranks of what has happened in the past only to revisit it in time and say “we were wrong.”  

Republican and Democratic Treasury Secretaries, along with bipartisan experts, have been telling us this wouldn’t work for over a decade. The Treasury makes an average of 5 million payments every day. You can’t flag some in the computer to pay on time, leaving others past due.

Prioritization legislation is a way of making default sound acceptable, not a way of preventing it. They want default to sound manageable by promising to pay some of our bills.

Republican extremism is the single largest threat to the American people. And if governing was the goal, they would raise the debt ceiling just as they did three times under the former president.

Even the most skilled Republican legislator of our time, Leader McConnell knows this legislation is a sham and wouldn’t stand a chance in the Senate. He’s in my thoughts and sending wishes for a speedy recovery.

This legislation doesn’t protect anyone. It’s a haphazard attempt to cover up their inability to govern, and the American people will see it for what it is.

The “Pay China First” bill would make my Republican colleagues responsible for:

• Delays in Social Security checks;
• Putting our military at risk;
• Veterans not getting their benefits;
• Banks and small businesses collapsing;
• Jobs disappearing, and more.

We can’t predict just how bad this would be because it’s never happened before, but what we do know: Republicans don’t have a plan.

Even TALKING about default has real consequences. This is now the fourth time in the last decade that Republicans have set us off on this course.

Back in the summer of 2011, the Republican impasse caused:

• The Treasury was forced to spend $1.3 billion more in interest payments, according to a Government Accountability Office estimate.
• And of course, who could forget that the U.S. credit rating was downgraded for the first time in our history.

Republicans followed up in 2013 and:

• An estimated 120,000 jobs were lost.
• Rates for commercial paper rose as a direct result of the standoff, disrupting private markets.

Then to the most recent dispute, in 2015:

• For the first time ever, Treasury was forced to postpone the release of a new bond due to lack of demand; a major blow to our credibility;
• And bill supply declined by $210 billion after Treasury was forced to reduce bill issuance.

These are costs to taxpayers, and when the Republican extremism before us now is injected into our financial markets, taxpayers will bear the brunt in higher costs.

The fact we are even having this conversation is a dereliction of duty. When the American people entrusted Republicans to govern, we saw the calamitous effects in 2011, 2013, and 2015, I urge them to learn from those mistakes and put the country ahead of political games.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time. 

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