[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 145 (Monday, October 14, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H6572]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE DEBT CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, the debt limit exists for a simple 
reason: to assure that public debt isn't recklessly piled up without 
Congress periodically acknowledging it and addressing the spending 
patterns that are causing it. If a debt limit increase is supposed to 
be automatic, as the President suggests, then there is really no 
purpose to it.
  A new dimension has now appeared in this discussion. Unlike every one 
of his predecessors, this President has vowed that unless Congress 
unconditionally raises the debt limit, the United States will default 
on its sovereign debt.
  But a failure to raise the debt limit would not, by itself, cause the 
Nation to default. The Government Accountability Office has 
consistently held that the Treasury Secretary has ``the authority to 
choose the order in which to pay obligations of the United States'' to 
protect the Nation's credit. Such authority is inherent in the 1789 act 
that established the Treasury Department and entrusted it with ``the 
management of the revenue'' and the ``support of the public credit.'' 
The affirmative duty of the Treasury Department to do so is underscored 
by the 14th Amendment.
  Our revenues are more than 10 times our debt payments, so paying the 
debt first to prevent a sovereign default is well within the financial 
ability of the Federal Government--and indeed, it is a fiscal 
imperative.
  Now, earlier this year, the House passed H.R. 807, which not only 
explicitly requires the payment of the national debt in the case of an 
impasse over the debt limit, but even allows the President to exceed 
the debt limit, itself, in order to protect the Nation's credit. That 
measure languishes in the Senate under the threat of a Presidential 
veto.
  Protecting the sovereign credit by prioritizing payments would mean 
delaying paying other bills. That is also untenable, unthinkable, and 
something much to be avoided, but it would not imperil the Nation's 
sovereign credit. Only the President can do that.
  The House leadership met with the President last week and offered to 
extend the debt limit until November 22 with no strings attached. The 
President refused. Senate Republicans offered a 6-month extension, but 
the Senate Democratic leader refused.
  What the President threatens to do would be catastrophic and 
unprecedented. The full faith and credit of the United States is what 
gives markets the confidence to loan money to the Federal Government. 
Even a threat of default--exactly the kind the President is now 
making--could have dire consequences to a Nation that now owes more 
than its entire economy produces in a year.
  So where do we go from here?
  Republicans have miscalculated on two key assumptions: first, that 
the Democrats would negotiate the issues that divide our country--they 
have not; and second, that Democrats would seek to minimize the 
suffering caused by the impasse--they have not.
  Given the ruthless and vindictive way the shutdown has been handled, 
I now believe that this President would willfully act to destroy the 
full faith and credit of the United States unless the Congress 
acquiesces to all of his demands--at least as long as he sees political 
advantage in doing so.
  If the Republicans acquiesce, the immediate crisis will quickly 
vanish, credit markets will calm, and public life will return to other 
matters. But a fundamental element of our Constitution will have been 
destroyed: the power of the purse will have shifted from the 
representatives of the people to the Executive. The executive 
bureaucracies will be freed to churn out ever more outlandish 
regulations with no effective congressional review or check through the 
purse. A perilous era will have begun in which the President sets 
spending levels and vetoes any bill falling short of his demands. 
Whenever a deadline approaches, one House can simply refuse to 
negotiate with the other until Congress is faced with a Hobson's choice 
of a shutdown or a default. The Nation's spending will again 
dangerously accelerate, the deficit will rapidly widen, and the 
economic prosperity of the Nation will continue to slowly bleed away.
  This impasse may have started as a dispute over a collapsing health 
program, but it has now taken on the dimensions of a constitutional 
crisis. Yesterday, in Washington, a group of America's veterans rose up 
to take a stand against these unconstitutional usurpations. I believe 
the salvation of our Nation now ultimately depends on the American 
people joining them.

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