I rise in strong opposition to this rule and to the underlying bill.

M. Speaker, I keep expecting lion tamers and acrobats to appear on the House floor.  Because this process, under this Republican leadership, has become a complete circus.

The underlying Boehner plan should be called the “Republican Default Act.”

This rule allows the Republican Leadership to bring a radical balanced budget amendment to the Constitution before the House, but right now we have NO IDEA what that amendment will look like.  This is crazy.

Our Founding Fathers spent weeks and weeks arguing over every clause, conjunction and comma in that Constitution.  But today, my Republican friends treat it as just another excuse for a partisan press release.

And why are they doing this, M. Speaker?  It’s simple – politics.

The Speaker of the House made that clear in a radio interview.  He argued that the reason that Republicans should support his radical plan to slash Medicare and Social Security and education and medical research is that, QUOTE, “Barack Obama hates it, Harry Reid hates it, Nancy Pelosi hates it.”

And yesterday in a meeting of the Republican conference, their leadership tried to rally votes for this bill by playing a clip from the movie “The Town.”  The quote they used – and I guess this was supposed to be inspirational, was this:  “I need your help.  I can’t tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we’re gonna hurt some people.”

The problem is, M. Speaker, is that the people they’re going to hurt are the senior citizens on Medicare and Social Security.  They’re going to hurt children who don’t have enough to eat.  They’re going to hurt students trying to afford a college education.  They’re going to hurt the very people who can least afford to take the hit, all in the name of protecting tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

Their approach is reckless, wrong and unfair, and I urge my colleagues to vote against it.  And I yield back the balance of my time.

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M. Speaker, this bill does nothing to solve our long-term fiscal challenges.  Because everybody here knows that this isn’t going anywhere.  Instead, it’s a political stunt.  Instead, it hurtles us closer and closer to a devastating default.

For years, Presidents and Congresses of both parties have raised the debt ceiling, recognizing that endangering the full faith and credit of the United States would be a grave mistake.

It’s amazing to me how many Republicans I’ve heard who dismiss the potential of default as no big deal.  No big deal?  Tell that to the family who would have to pay higher interest rates on their mortgage, their car loan, their student loan.  It would be a very big deal to them.

Many of my friends on the other side of the aisle didn’t just stand by as we created these massive deficits.  They were active participants.

They voted for two huge tax cuts that weren’t paid for.  Two wars that weren’t paid for.  A massive prescription drug program that wasn’t paid for.  And now, their solution is to punish the very Americans who can least afford it, all in the name of keeping their rich friends and special interests happy.

The Boehner plan is unbalanced and unfair.  It slashes programs like Social Security and Medicare that benefit the middle class and the poor.

But the Republicans insist on protecting tax breaks for oil and gas companies.  Just today, Exxon Mobil announced profits of $10.7 BILLION for the second quarter.  Do they really need special tax breaks?

The American people sure don’t think so.  Poll after poll show that the vast majority of our citizens prefer a balanced approach.  Yes, we need to cut spending.  Yes, we need to reform our government.  But everybody needs to chip in, to do their part – including the very wealthy who have benefited the most.

There are certainly places to save.  How about ending wars that aren’t paid for?  Right now we borrow $10 billion dollars every month for military operations alone in Afghanistan to prop up a corrupt and incompetent Karzai government. 

How about ending wasteful subsidies to big agriculture companies?

How about asking billionaire hedge fund managers to pay the same tax rates as their secretaries?

The truth is that the best way to deal with our long term fiscal situation is to grow our economy.  That means creating jobs and putting people back to work.  That means investing in things like education and infrastructure and green technology and medical research. 

That’s the kind of economic future the American people deserve.  The Boehner default plan would take us in exactly the wrong direction, and I urge my colleagues to reject it.

I reserve the balance of my time.