[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 81 (Monday, May 15, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S1636]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Debt Ceiling

  Mr. President, as Democrats continue upholding our responsibility to 
preserve the full faith and credit of the United States, the position 
of the President, of Leader Jeffries, and myself has not changed: 
Default must be taken off the table.
  Never in the history of our country have we failed to pay our bills 
on time. To default now would mean crossing a terrible point of no 
return, where the biggest losers will be America's seniors, America's 
small businesses, America's working and middle-class families, and 
everyone--everyone--who relies on Social Security, Medicare, pension 
payments, and 401(k)s.
  Last Friday, I wrote a ``Dear Colleague'' to my Senate colleagues, 
explaining just how destructive a first-ever default would be. I 
warned, as many economists have warned, that a first-ever default would 
crash the economy, increase costs, and kill jobs--crash the economy, 
increase costs, kill jobs. Who would want that? But that is what awaits 
American families on the other side of the x date if no action is 
taken. According to experts, a default would almost certainly plunge 
the United States into another recession, shrinking GDP growth by an 
alarming 6 percent.
  A first-ever default would also make life's most important expenses 
far more costly. Mortgages, car payments, student loans, and small 
business loans all would skyrocket. They wouldn't just go up a half a 
point; they would go up a lot. But the value of retirement accounts, 
which Americans spend their whole lives--every 2 weeks, every month, 
every 6 months--putting that money in so they would have a decent 
retirement, would nosedive--nosedive.
  And, of course, if the United States defaults in a few weeks for the 
first time ever, experts warn as many as 8.3 million jobs would be 
lost. It would be a catastrophe.
  No one should play with it. No one should flirt with it. No one 
should hold it hostage and say: ``Unless you do `this,' we are going to 
default'' because the consequences of default are just awful.
  Americans have been to hell and back over the past couple of years as 
we have tried to recover from the record unemployment we saw during 
COVID. Americans are coming back. I spoke at a whole bunch of college 
graduations this weekend, and the students who had been through COVID 
had missed sometimes a year of school or a year and a half of school or 
6 months of school, but they were bouncing back, raring to go. It gave 
me some faith in the future of the country, but if default were to hit 
them and the rest of the country, wow, that would be awful.
  So, for all of these reasons and many more, I insisted last week, 
along with President Biden and along with Leader Jeffries, that default 
is off the table. Speaker McCarthy must commit to the same and not say: 
``Unless you do `this' or do `that,' we will default.'' The 
consequences of default are too terrible. Defaulting would mean that we 
would force Americans, as we recuperate from the pain of COVID, to go 
through what might even be a greater pain in a few short years after 
COVID had reached its zenith. That alone should push leaders on both 
sides to agree that default is not an option under any scenario.
  For decades, Democrats and Republicans have worked out our 
differences about spending and revenues through the annual budget 
process. That process began earlier this year when the President 
released his budget proposal. This week, both sides are continuing to 
hold parallel discussions about the budget--what we should do with 
revenues, what we should do with spending--as Congress does every year. 
These conversations are going on right now among the four leaders and 
the President's representatives as I speak, and I am glad these 
conversations are continuing in a very, very serious way.
  The President, Leader Jeffries, myself--we welcome a bipartisan 
debate about our Nation's fiscal future, but we have made it plain to 
our Republican colleagues that default is not an option. Its 
consequences are too damaging, too severe. It must--must--be taken off 
the table.