Congressional Black Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. JEFFRIES. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor and my privilege today to stand in the House of Representatives, along with my distinguished colleague from the Silver State, Representative Steven Horsford, to coanchor the CBC Special Order, the hour of power, where, for the next 60 minutes, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have an opportunity to talk directly to the American people about the situation that we face in this country right now related to both the government shutdown and the impending debt ceiling crisis that we confront.

Mr. Speaker, this is day 14 of a government shutdown brought to us by reckless, irresponsible, and unreasonable behavior by our friends on the other side of the aisle. It is a government shutdown that is hurting the American people. It is hurting children, placing their Head Start programming at risk. It is hurting seniors who rely on the Meals on Wheels program. It is hurting expectant mothers who may be unable to receive the nutritional assistance that they are otherwise qualified for. It is hurting the more than 800,000 hardworking civil servants who have been unceremoniously cast out of their jobs, uncertain as to when they may be able to return. It is hurting America.

But as bad as this government shutdown has been, we are also faced with a crisis that might be even worse if we are unable in this House to raise the debt ceiling within the next several days. The Treasury Secretary has indicated that the United States effectively will run out of the capacity to pay all of its bills and its creditors if we do not raise the debt ceiling by Thursday, October 17, just a few days from now.

Now, the debt ceiling has been a vehicle that all too often has been mischaracterized, perhaps intentionally, perhaps out of ignorance. I am not certain. But let's just clear the record as to what the debt ceiling actually represents. It is a backward-looking vehicle, not a forward-looking vehicle designed to give the President the ability to spend more. That is a gross mischaracterization. The debt ceiling is a backward-looking vehicle designed to give the President and this administration the capacity to pay bills that this Congress has already incurred.

We just want the Congress to undertake its constitutional responsibility pursuant to the 14th Amendment, where, in section 4, it makes clear the validity of the public debt authorized by law shall not be questioned. And it is Congress, in section 5 of the 14th Amendment, that has the responsibility to adhere to that constitutional requirement.

We are going to explore this theme and the consequences of a debt ceiling default during this Special Order. And I am very pleased that we have been joined by the dynamic leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, the distinguished chairperson from the great State of Ohio, Representative Marcia Fudge.

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Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank the distinguished gentleman from Virginia for his observations and for reminding the American people that the President, the Senate majority, Democrats in the House of Representatives have always been prepared to sit down and attempt to find common ground as it relates to the challenges that we confront here in the country. We have been asking for a conference committee to be put into place so we can discuss the budget passed by the House and passed by the Senate and figure out how we can negotiate around those differences since March; but the House majority has refused to appoint Members to negotiate the budget differences.

But we are not going to be put into a position where essentially you say, Give us everything we want--the right-wing Republican agenda for this country rejected by the American people on November 6, 2012. But notwithstanding that fact, give us everything we want or we are going to shut down the government or force a default that plunges this country and the world into a painful recession. We are not interested in negotiating on those terms because it is not in the best interest of the American people.

I am pleased that we have been joined by the distinguished Representative from the great State of California.

I yield to Representative Barbara Lee.

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Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank the distinguished gentleman from Texas for his observations and for his historical analysis, pointing out that raising the debt ceiling is something that has consistently occurred throughout the last century here in America.

I want to enter into the Record a White House correspondence that reads, in part, as follows:

This country now possesses the strongest credit in the world. The full consequences of a default--or even the serious prospect of default--by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result.

Mr. Speaker, this letter is dated November 16, 1983, and those words were written by then-President Ronald Reagan to Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker: The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result.

Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times during his two terms; and yet our good friends on the other side of the aisle want to come here and lecture President Obama as if he is being irresponsible, when the paragon of conservative Presidential leadership recognized the necessity on 18 occasions--and as memorialized in this correspondence--of raising the debt ceiling.

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