[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11543-11544]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   STOP PLAYING GAMES, DON'T DEFAULT

  (Mr. WALZ of Minnesota asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to say what my 
colleagues and I'm sure many Americans across the country are saying: 
Stop playing the games and get the work done.
  I understand we all come here with values, ideas, and principles that 
we hold dear, but when the facts dispute our ideology, we don't get the 
choice to change the facts; you change your ideology.
  Failure to pay our bills will be catastrophic to our economy; it's 
that simple. This isn't a question of enabling future deficits. The 
Federal Government needs to cover promises it made

[[Page 11544]]

to our soldiers, to our veterans, to our seniors, and to our creditors.
  Responsible people in countries pay their bills. Our 40th President 
knew this. In a radio address he delivered in 1987, Ronald Reagan 
admonished Congress for bringing the government to the edge of default 
and urged them to face their responsibility.
  Here's what President Reagan said: ``Interest rates will skyrocket, 
instability will occur in the financial markets, and the Federal 
deficit will soar.''
  We cannot ignore the facts, and allowing our Nation to default no way 
fixes our budget problems.
  Stop playing the games; get the work done; move the country forward.

                          ____________________