Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, the distinguished chair of the Appropriations Committee, Congresswoman DeLauro from Connecticut. Thank you for bringing this important legislation to the floor in such a substantial way for our country in such need.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this continuing resolution, an essential step to keep government open. But it is not about government; it is about the people, meeting their needs. Congress can continue our work for the people, whether we are talking about Social Security recipients, veterans, millions who have a need and would benefit from what we are doing, and address the health crisis in our country, and the rest, this legislation goes a long way to doing that.

In fact, it is essential that we keep government open. A government shutdown would be a very bad thing for our country, for our economic growth, and for meeting the needs of the American people, as I suggested.

This legislation secures government funding through December of this year, providing an appropriate amount of time for us to work in a bipartisan way, Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, to address appropriations priorities in the regular order process for fiscal year 2022 while funding government and meeting the needs of people and avoiding a government shutdown, which would be catastrophic for families and the economy, and recover from the COVID pandemic and the economic crisis.

This legislation also meets other important priorities, helping American families devastated by recent natural disasters. Earlier this evening, we had a moment of silence for all those who lost their lives and for their families--it is very sad--in Hurricane Ida, throughout the country.

Then, helping resettle Afghan evacuees fleeing danger, my colleague, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, has spoken about the need to do that and how important that is. We have a commitment in this House on both sides of the aisle, and the women on both sides of the Capitol, to help the Afghan women in any way that we can.

Another item previously prioritized in the continuing resolution is the funding for the Iron Dome. I thank the chairwoman for her leadership in bringing this legislation to the floor this week to further express the will of Congress for the security of Israel manifested in funding for the Iron Dome. I thank her so much for that.

Mr. Speaker, crucially, this funding will also include the suspension of the debt limit through December 2022. Addressing the debt limit is about protecting the full faith and credit of the United States, which the Founders wrote into the Constitution in the 14th Amendment. Section 4 states: ``The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned.''

This is not about future spending. Some would like to give the impression we are just doing this. No, this is about paying bills already incurred, including to Social Security recipients, veterans, and millions who have benefited from the bipartisan COVID relief legislation passed last December.

As I said before, Congress is ironclad in its commitment to never letting the full faith and credit of the United States come under threat, a commitment that has long been bipartisan.

Indeed, our approach in the CR to the debt limit is modeled after legislation proposed by GOP Senators in recent years. Since 2011, each of the seven times that the debt limit has been needed to be addressed, Congress has done so on a bipartisan basis, including three times during the Trump administration when the debt, during the Trump administration, rose by $7.8 trillion. Again, much of that was incurred in terms of honoring our commitment on COVID, but a very big chunk of it in a tax scam that gave 83 percent of the benefit to the top 1 percent.

It should be noted that just 3 percent of the current debt has been accumulated under the Biden administration.

Threatening to force the United States into default would be reckless and dangerous beyond measure. The last time Republicans tried this, a number of years ago, even the thought of not honoring the full faith and credit lowered our credit rating.

The failure to address the debt limit, as Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen recently stated, would ``have absolutely catastrophic economic consequences. It would be utterly unprecedented'' and ``would precipitate a financial crisis. It would threaten the jobs and savings of Americans, and at a time when we are still recovering from the COVID epidemic.''

A study released just today found that the failure to address the debt limit would cost the U.S. economy up to 6 million jobs, wipe out potentially $15 trillion in household wealth, make borrowing rates skyrocket, and send the unemployment rate surging up to 9 percent, almost twice the level it is now. As the report states, the situation would be cataclysmic and comparable to that suffered during the financial crisis of 2008.

Indeed, this situation would be ``financial Armageddon,'' according to Mark Zandi of Moody's. It could ``cause an immediate, literally cascading catastrophe of unbelievable proportions and damage America for 100 years,'' according to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

As I mentioned before, this has always been bipartisan. Not everybody on every side of the aisle has voted for it, but nobody would let it fail.

In 2019, when supporting a suspension of the debt ceiling under President Trump, Leader McConnell stated, while supporting suspension of the debt, he stated that doing so ``secures our Nation's full faith and credit and ensures that Congress will not throw this kind of unnecessary wrench into the gear of our job growth and thriving economy.''

If it was true then, why isn't it true now? Why would Senator McConnell reverse his position and decide to throw an unnecessary wrench into the gears of our job growth and thriving economy? Today the stakes remain high, and they remain the same.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to come together in the spirit of bipartisanship to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.

I also want to, again, thank the committee and the distinguished chair for the bipartisan conversations that you have had, settling some internal aspects of this legislation, some of the important provisions in it.

Remember, we cannot shut down the government. That would be catastrophic in its own right. We cannot ignore and not support the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

Right in this Constitution of the United States, the 14th Amendment, Section 4: ``The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned.'' The Constitution says that. Why should the Congress question that?

Mr. Speaker, I urge a strong bipartisan vote for the continuing resolution.

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