Congressional Black Caucus Addqresses Raising Debt Ceiling

Floor Speech

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Mr. JEFFRIES. Mr. Speaker, once again it is an honor and a privilege to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and to anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order in partnership with my coanchor, the distinguished gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford), where for the next 60 minutes members of the Congressional Black Caucus will have the opportunity to speak directly to the American people about an issue of great consequence and great significance for our country, for our economy, for our future, and for our well-being, and that is the debt ceiling.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this is a Yogi Berra moment. It is deja vu all over again.

Time and time and time again we have been forced to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and urge our colleagues on the other side of the aisle not to plunge this country into a painful default and risk the full faith and credit of the United States of America for the first time in the history of the Republic.

Whenever we have been forced to have this conversation, we are always put into a position where we need to clarify what the debt ceiling is really all about because it has been subject to a lot of misrepresentation. The debt ceiling is not a forward-looking vehicle that is designed to give the President the opportunity to spend more; it is a backward-looking vehicle designed to give the President the opportunity to pay bills that the Congress has already incurred: bills that were incurred during the previous decade, bills that were incurred during the 8 years of the Bush administration during which time our good friends on the other side of the aisle were in control of both the House and the Senate, and we will go into that in greater detail as we move forward.

Let's have an honest conversation about the realities that we face concerning the debt in this country, in excess of $17 trillion. There is reason for us to be concerned about it, but let's not manipulate the facts as to how we got ourselves into this situation.

I am pleased that we have been joined by a very distinguished Member of the Congress and of the freshman class. In fact, we affectionately refer to him as the ranking member of the freshman class of the Congressional Black Caucus in the 113th Congress, and I am very pleased to yield to my good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

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Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey for walking us through some of the episodes that the American people have been subjected to as a result of the extreme behavior that has been articulated and enacted, in fact, as part of the agenda put forth by the majority over the last two terms.

It is time, Mr. Speaker, to end the irresponsibility, end the recklessness, end the extremism, and end the brinksmanship so we can get back to doing the business of the American people with a fiscally responsible, sustainable course; but one that recognizes that here in this Congress, time and time again we have inflicted wounds on the economy and on the American people. We did it last spring in advance of sequestration taking effect. We were warned by independent economists that if you allow sequestration to take effect, $85 billion in random cuts spread out without reason across the economy, it would cost us approximately 750,000 jobs, but yet it happened.

Then we were warned that it would be problematic if you allowed the government to shut down. Nonetheless, some people couldn't help the recklessness, the irresponsibility, the extremism, and so the government was shut down for 16 days. Standard & Poor's estimated that it cost us $24 billion in lost economic productivity.

Yet here we are again, a Yogi Berra moment, déja 2 vu all over again, confronting an unnecessary, manufactured crisis. Just lift the debt ceiling, consistent with what has happened time and time again across Democratic and Republican administrations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield now to the coanchor of the CBC Special Order, the distinguished gentleman from the Silver State, my good friend, Representative Horsford.

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Mr. JEFFRIES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman for pointing out some of the catastrophic consequences that the American people will be forced to endure if we fail to raise the debt ceiling and force a default and threaten the full faith and credit of the United States of America for the first time in the history of the Republic.

I just want to go over some of the things that would be at stake as a few of my colleagues have already laid out, but it bears reemphasis:

Social Security payments owed to the American people will be jeopardized by a failure to raise the debt ceiling;

Veterans benefits will be jeopardized by a failure to raise the debt ceiling;

Mortgage interest rates could increase as a result of a failure to raise the debt ceiling;

Automobile loan interest rates could increase as a result of a failure to raise the debt ceiling;

Credit card payments as a result of an increase in interest connected to debt that is held on American Express or MasterCard or Visa, or any of the other credit cards that the American people have, could increase as a result of a failure to raise the debt ceiling.

This is not an esoteric concept. This is something that will have a real impact on the American people. That is why we need a debt ceiling increase consistent with what every Congress and every American President has done since the founding of this country.

I want to read into the Record, and then perhaps have my good friend react to it, a Presidential letter that relates to this debt ceiling issue, and it reads in part:

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 the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill-afford to allow such a result.

This is a letter that was written on November 16,

1983, by President Ronald Reagan, addressed to then-Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. President Reagan, I believe, my good friends on the other side of the aisle, have deified him as a ``fiscal warrior,'' a ``true conservative.'' Yet we know that Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times during his Presidency, and in this letter to Senator Baker lays out in bold, uncompromising terms the consequences of a failure to raise the debt ceiling.

This is not a partisan issue. We as Democrats are not standing here on the floor of the House of Representatives because we want to beat up the other side. We are here to defend the best interest of the American people--east, west, north, south, rural America, urban America, and suburban America--because the consequences of a failure to raise the debt ceiling will hurt everybody.

If the distinguished gentleman from Nevada could just react to the notion that this is somehow a partisan issue that needs to be discussed so that President Obama is being fiscally irresponsible by requesting that Congress do its constitutional duty.

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