Default Prevention Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, here we go again. We are only weeks from defaulting on our debt, and this bill does nothing to deal with that. The bill before us today is, essentially, a plan for defaulting on our obligations.

As my friend said, the Republican gentleman from Louisiana, all this does is prioritize our debt. If you are prioritizing your debt, by definition, you are defaulting. You are not paying your bills.

This would prioritize our repayment, putting our veterans, small businesses, and our first responders behind foreign governments in regard to receiving the payment that is due to them.

We have to pay our bills. We cannot go down this road again. We have seen this movie before, and it is not going to change. The last time we came close to defaulting on our debt, the results were terrible. In 1 month, job growth dropped by more than 130,000 jobs. The S&P 500 tanked by nearly 20 percent, and our credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history.

No one knows for sure what the full extent of the damage to the economy would be if we were to default on our debt. But, as Chairman Ryan said earlier, we know that it would ``freeze up our economy''--higher interest rates for mortgages on auto loans, student loans, and credit cards; higher interest rates and less access to business loans needed to finance payrolls, building inventories, or to invest in equipment and construction; families' retirement savings in 401(k)'s dropping as the stock market tanks; almost 4 million veterans not receiving disability benefits; and doctors, medical providers, and hospitals not getting their pay.

The debt limit is not something to play around with. We simply need to pay our bills. Vote a resounding ``no'' on this bill, and let's pay our bills.

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