Let the Adults Take the Wheel

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I want you to imagine that you get home from work tomorrow and decide that you just don't want to pay your mortgage, so you call your bank and share the good news.

The bank, at that point, explains that if you don't, you are looking at eviction, so you propose a counteroffer because you are a clever fellow. I will pay my mortgage, but only if my family stops using hot water and stops going to the doctor. At which point, the bank says: You, sir, are a moron.

Yet, that is what is happening in the House this week. The United States Government has already agreed to buy a house. We are already living in the house. We took out a loan to pay for the house, but the Republicans want to stop making the mortgage payments unless the American people agree to skimp on healthcare and basic services.

I would remind everybody in this body that it is Congress that has the power of the purse. Every dollar of government spending and every dollar of government revenue was approved on this floor by this body. If the expenses exceed the revenues, then we borrow to make up the difference. We made those choices.

You all may not like every dollar that we have approved. I certainly don't. I also don't agree with every dollar my wife has ever spent, and she doesn't agree with every dollar that I have ever spent, but we get by because my wife and I are functioning adults. That would appear to be too high a bar for this body.

The majority today is bringing a package to the floor that, according to Moody's Analytics, would ``meaningfully increase the likelihood'' of a recession; not because it is the right thing to do but because it is the only way that the Speaker can keep his job.

If Speaker McCarthy brought a clean debt limit bill to the floor of the House tomorrow, he would get every single Democratic vote, and I am sure a few of my colleagues across the aisle would join in. It would pass the Senate, and President Biden would sign it. That would be that. We would move on to the important work of this country.

But as all of us know who spent a long, late night here after 14 failed efforts to win the Speakership, Mr. McCarthy caved to the extremists in his own party and agreed to conditions where he loses his job if he does not try to blow up the economy. He has the opportunity today to do the right thing; he simply doesn't have the ability.

The House is now preparing to vote on a bill that would be disastrous for Americans. Let's be clear: If we don't raise the debt ceiling, we will see collapses in global financial markets.

We will default on our debt, which means interest rates go up, which means everything you have that has an interest rate tied to it gets more expensive. Your mortgage, your car payment, your student loan, your credit card payments, all those things start going up.

The majority is hoping that the adults in the room will prevail and that the adults will be so frightened by that consequence that we will accept their self-destructive alternative.

The alternative is a bill that would slash nondefense discretionary spending by 22 percent. Just in my home State of Illinois, let's talk about what that means.

That means in Illinois, home of the O'Hare airport hub, eight traffic control centers shut down.

In the wake of East Palestine, the train crash, just in Illinois, we will do 420 fewer rail inspections.

2,900 students in Illinois will lose their Pell grants. Several hundred thousand will see their Pell grants cut.

10,000 kids will lose pre-K and childcare.

53,000 veterans will lose outpatient services. That is just in Illinois.

Nationally, a cleaner, cheaper future will be thrown away.

White-collar police will be defunded to make it easier for everybody to commit tax fraud, which, of course, will lower future revenues and make it necessary for us to borrow more money.

The majority would have us believe that our only choice right now is: Do we want to blow up the economy, or do we want to ruin the lives of millions of Americans? That is not the only choice.

We have a third option. The third option is that we can let the adults come back in the room. We can take our jobs seriously. We can pass a clean debt limit bill.

Governing is hard, but it is especially hard when you let the clowns drive the car.

Please, Mr. Speaker, let the adults take the wheel.

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