{"id":36124,"date":"2023-01-25T12:04:53","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T19:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/catastrophe-would-befall-economy-with-national-default-warn-colorado-democrats\/"},"modified":"2023-01-25T19:04:53","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T19:04:53","slug":"catastrophe-would-befall-economy-with-national-default-warn-colorado-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/catastrophe-would-befall-economy-with-national-default-warn-colorado-democrats\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Catastrophe\u2019 would befall economy with national default, warn Colorado Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Fireplaces
Fireplaces being used inside the U.S. Capitol send smoke into the sky the night of Jan. 6, 2023, as House members prepare for a 14th vote on the selection of a speaker. (Jennifer Shutt\/States Newsroom)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

While talks over raising the United State\u2019s debt limit continue in Congress after the country hit the limit last week, Colorado\u2019s federal representatives have expressed differing views on how the government should respond.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Treasury Department is already using extraordinary measures<\/a> to keep the government operational, but a divided Congress will need to come to an agreement to avoid defaulting on its debts before June. Debates are expected to be particularly tense on the issue given concessions Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to far-right members of his party to win the Speaker election.<\/a><\/p>\n

If Congress doesn\u2019t come to an agreement before the default date, expected in early June, economists have warned it could have drastic repercussions for Americans and across the globe. The Treasury would no longer have borrowing authority to pay for the country\u2019s bills in full and on time, which has not happened before in the country\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlobal financial markets and the economy would be upended, and even if resolved quickly, Americans would pay for this default for generations, as global investors would rightly believe that the federal government\u2019s finances have been politicized and that a time may come when they would not be paid what they are owed when owed it,\u201d said Moody\u2019s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi and Assistant Director Bernard Yaros in a September 2021 report<\/a> that came out during the last round of debt limit brinkmanship.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Denver, said in a town hall with news reporters that right-wing Republicans don\u2019t want to \u201cexert fiscal responsibility.\u201d She said the debt ceiling was something people on both sides of the aisle always agreed on until the Tea Party Republicans fought raising it in 2011, like she said the MAGA Republicans are doing now.<\/p>\n

DeGette said she\u2019s \u201cdisturbed\u201d by the rhetoric she\u2019s heard from the far right and how a default could \u201cwreak havoc\u201d on the country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people didn\u2019t like the inflation that we had the last year or two, they\u2019re really not going to like it if our economy falls apart because the Republicans on the right didn\u2019t do what\u2019s responsible,\u201d DeGette said. \u201cSo I am concerned about the tone that they\u2019re taking and I\u2019m also concerned about the concessions that they\u2019re trying to wring out of this, because again in the past, raising the debt ceiling was never used as a hostage to try to get other economic concessions.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat from Lafayette, said the congressman believes preserving the full faith and credit of the U.S. is \u201ccritically important,\u201d and therefore raising the debt ceiling as necessary should continue to be done on a bipartisan basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effort by some to engage in political gamesmanship with the debt ceiling is dangerous, and poses serious risk to our economy and countless Americans, including social security beneficiaries, veterans, and more,\u201d Neguse spokesperson Hannah Rehm said in an email. \u201cWe must ensure the government does not default on its loans, and cannot allow politicians to jeopardize the livelihoods of working families for political purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representatives for Colorado\u2019s Republican U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert, Ken Buck and Doug Lamborn did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but they have all publicly shared their views on the country\u2019s debt before.<\/p>\n

Boebert, who is from Silt, tweeted asking how high the country\u2019s debt needs to climb<\/a> for liberals to admit the financial situation is unsustainable. She also retweeted an interview in which Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, said Republicans don\u2019t plan to default on the country\u2019s debts.<\/p>\n

Since being in Congress, Boebert has voted against raising the country\u2019s debt limit multiple times.<\/p>\n\n

Buck, who is from Windsor, said in an interview with conservative radio talk show host<\/a> John Fredericks that capping future spending will be the best solution, as he said Democrats\u2019 increased spending over the past two years has led to high inflation and interest rates.<\/p>\n

Buck continued in the interview to say this is an issue \u201cfoundational to what Republicans stand for\u201d and that he doesn\u2019t see any Republicans siding with Democrats when it comes to the debt ceiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna raise the debt ceiling \u2014 we\u2019re not gonna take America off a cliff, but the Democrats have to agree that we can\u2019t keep spending at the rate we\u2019re spending right now,\u201d Buck said.<\/p>\n

Lamborn, who is from Colorado Springs, has voted both for and against raising the debt ceiling during his time in Congress. In a tweet from the end of 2021<\/a>, he criticized Democrats for wanting to raise the debt ceiling.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat from Centennial, said the government \u201cobviously\u201d needs to raise the debt ceiling as it has done on a bipartisan basis many times before to avoid a detrimental impact to the nation\u2019s health and recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear everyone\u2019s concerns with making sure that we get the debt and our deficits under control, but gambling with our nation\u2019s economy and our small businesses and our family\u2019s financial security is not the way to do it,\u201d Crow said to Newsline.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat from Lakewood, also said that raising the debt ceiling usually is a \u201croutine\u201d and bipartisan process to pay for previously passed legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans are politicizing this process and holding the federal government \u2014 and the critical services we all depend on \u2014 hostage,\u201d Pettersen said in a text. \u201cWe can\u2019t let them harm the full faith and credit of the United States, which would cause devastating economic consequences across the globe. My colleagues across the aisle need to stop putting politics over the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a Democrat of Thornton, said Congress must find solutions to avoid \u201ceconomic catastrophe\u201d that could result from not raising the debt ceiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cFailing to raise the debt limit could cause a global economic disaster which would hurt hardworking families in our community,\u201d Caraveo said in an email.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans faulted for politicizing a historically bipartisan process<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[981,663,28,1126,1304],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-36124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-3rd-congressional-district","tag-democratic-party","tag-headlines","tag-politics-general","tag-republican-party"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36124"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=36124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}