[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9726]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             SAYING NO TO REPUBLICAN THREATS ON THE BUDGET

  (Mr. YARMUTH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, we are now less than 6 weeks away from a 
magical date, August 2. That is the day when the Secretary of Treasury 
said we will essentially have to foreclose on the United States of 
America. We will begin paying China before we pay our troops. That is 
right. That is the day we run out of tricks to avoid raising the debt 
ceiling in this country.
  Just Sunday, my senior Senator, the minority leader of the Senate, 
said on CBS News that he was actually threatening basically to derail 
whatever deal comes on raising the debt ceiling if we don't do a deal 
on entitlements. It is an interesting threat, and I would like to point 
out what Ezra Klein wrote in The Washington Post. He said:
  ``But what, specifically, is the threat here? That Republicans will 
endanger the economy and run a campaign demanding deep Medicare cuts 
necessitated by an unrelenting hostility to tax increases on the 
richest Americans in an election year? That's not a credible threat. At 
some point, Democrats need to begin saying no to this stuff, and now's 
as good a time as any.''
  I say no.

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