“Well, look, it pains me that we would even be talking about this. This is not a game. You know, the debt ceiling is not something to toy with. If we hit the debt ceiling, that’s essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history. The impact on the economy would be catastrophic. That would be a worst financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008.
As I say that’s not a game. I don’t see why anybody’s talking about playing chicken with the debt ceiling. If we get to the point where you’ve damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”
- Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, on ABC’s This Week, commenting on Tea Party insistence that the country’s debt ceiling not be raised.
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Filed under: budget, campaign, Congress, Economics, editorial, Finance, history, Legal, News, Opinion, Politics, quote, Television, vote Tagged: Austan Goolsbee, Barack Obama, Council of Economic Advisers, Default (finance), Financial Crisis, Financial Services, Tax cut, United States
