Providing for Consideration of H.R. Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of argument about who is responsible for why we are here.

Mr. Roy, the gentleman from Texas, as I was coming in, spoke about keeping leverage.

Now, what do you keep leverage for? You keep it so you can make something that you want to happen happen.

The Speaker of this House has said default is not an option. The leader of the Democratic Party in this House has said default is not an option. But that wasn't good enough that we agreed.

It was, as the gentleman from Texas said, our Republican friends that wanted to keep leverage. They wanted to accomplish, essentially, in the appropriation bill, what they couldn't either accomplish or pass in the Appropriations Committee here because of their extraordinarily devastating bill that they offered and passed, which some of them are going to have to answer for in the next election.

What today is about is whether we are going to hurt 330 million Americans; whether we are going to hurt the global economy. That is what this is about.

From my perspective, there is only one answer: to pass a bill that, in fact, does not have America welch on its debts or, alternatively, to defeat a bill which will devastate our economy and be catastrophic globally. That is why we are here.

Mr. Speaker, I urge every Member to think of those 330 million Americans, all of whom will be hurt if we fail to do our duty.

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