At Senate Budget Hearing, Senator Murray Outlines Dangers of House Republicans' Default on America Bill

Hearing

"Well thank you, Chair Whitehouse for holding this really important hearing. Because the stakes are really high--and the clock is ticking.

We have--as we all know--until June 1st to raise the debt ceiling. That is weeks away. The American economy right now is heading for a cliff--and last week, the House Republicans voted to drive it off full speed ahead.

This should not be hard: when you are heading for a cliff--you turn the wheel!

You don't say, "Well, I'll turn the wheel, if you let me cut the breaks, or disable the airbags, or trash the engine. But that is essentially what the House Republicans are offering us.

Mr. Chairman, you called it door one or door two, I believe.

Because House Republicans are saying if you don't let us wreck the economy, and whittle down essential government services to the point where we are laying off air traffic controllers, then we will just wreck the economy by refusing to pay the bills instead.

Make no mistake--it doesn't matter who you vote for, what state you live in, or what you make. If House Republicans get their way, it is going to make your life worse.

The cuts they are proposing in the Default on America Act won't just kick families off food benefits or rip away housing support for veterans.

It will gut funding that keeps our planes in the sky and trains on the rails, our food and medicine safe, our cops on our streets--and helps get deadly fentanyl off of them.

And despite Republicans protesting, the reality is that this bill will not protect veterans from cuts. Just read it!

What House Republicans passed does nothing to protect the benefits and support that veterans have earned and are counting on to get housing, get a higher education, or start a business. The Default on America Act doesn't even protect veteran's health care--one of our fundamental obligations to the men and women who put their lives on the line for our country.

It just cuts--across the board. Medical research? Child care? Workforce training? Disaster relief? Border security? Small business grants? Cut!

That is their big idea. That is the Default on America Act that House Republicans are taking our economy hostage for.

Except, that's only half of it. Because House Republicans are also demanding spending caps that will lock in even more cuts over the next decade.

That is ten years of our competitors who are going to be investing in their economies, growing stronger, and gaining ground while House Republicans tie our hands, and force us to fall farther and farther behind.

A lost decade for America--that is what MAGA Republicans are proposing.

What House Republicans have voted for is one massive gift to the Chinese government. Because--guess what? Our competitors are not debating whether to pay their debts or wreck their economy. They are not debating whether to invest in their future or cut, and cap, the investments that keep them competitive. They are doing everything they can to get ahead.

So I am asking my Republican colleagues here at the brink of economic calamity: Do not let Speaker McCarthy's partisan hostage-taking win the day, and lose the 21st century.

Do not force an unprecedented economic crisis on our country in a vain attempt to slash funding for families, veterans, and communities across America.

Come to the table, work with us to simply pay our country's bills--like we have so many times before--including three times under the last president.

And then let's work together on our bipartisan spending bills that invest and keep us moving America forward--not back.

Which is--I will tell my committee members--exactly what we're focused on doing in the Senate Appropriations Committee."

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