[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 26 (Thursday, February 29, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H1620]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   BRING UP A CLEAN DEBT CEILING BILL

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on what my colleague 
from Texas said.
  It is, in fact, true that the commitment was made that as of today 
the debt ceiling would be extended so that this country would not go 
into default. And I know we have heard previously, well, that deadline 
can be extended a couple of weeks because of legislation that has 
passed this House.
  But the bottom line is what we are seeing here again is the same 
thing we saw with the Government shutdown. The Republican leadership 
wants to hold this Congress hostage to their ideological agenda where 
they want to cut Medicare, Medicaid, cut environmental programs, cut 
education, and they are saying unless you do some of that or unless you 
provide tax cuts for wealthy Americans and corporations, we are not 
going to extend the debt ceiling and we are going to threaten the 
possibility of this country going into default, again, a commitment 
that was made and a commitment that was broken.
  They should bring up a clean debt ceiling. They should not extend it 
for another week or another 2 weeks but continue it through the rest of 
the fiscal year so the possibility of default is not out there.
  I do not need to say what could possibly happen if this country went 
into default. Even the threat of it is a problem.

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