Increasing Statutory Limit on the Public Debt

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I signed that letter, I led that letter, and I will tell you why I did. America faces two challenges. One is we must pay our bills. Whether those bills were incurred for a war that you supported or you opposed; whether those bills were incurred by a Congress you served in or you didn't; whether it was for a prescription drug program that you were for or against, a bill incurred, an obligation incurred, is an obligation that must be paid. That is the fundamental responsibility that I acknowledge as a citizen, that I acknowledge as an American, that I acknowledge as a Congressman.

Second, this question of a long-term deficit reduction plan, we need it. You are right. We understand that.

Where is it?

You have the opportunity in this legislation to present your plan that will get us on a glide path to fiscal balance. It's not here, suggesting either you don't have a plan or the plan you want to present doesn't have the support of the American people.

We are playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun in the American economy, and the deficit clock is ticking. This requires a substantial response. The approach taken, a suspension vote, trivializes both our short-term obligation to pay our bills and our long-term obligation to have a long-term deficit reduction plan.

And the fact that this is done, being sponsored by folks who immediately say they are against what they proposed and then quietly making phone calls to Wall Street saying they are for what they just voted against, is what is Washington business as usual that people are tired of and is not solving our problem.

The default clock is ticking.

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