It was a busy week in Washington. And a productive one. Yes, I said it. After hearing me speak so often about my frustrations surrounding the lack of compromise, and inability to act, I think it is appropriate for me to tell you that this week, we saw some movement forward. First, in a critical vote, Congress acted in a bipartisan way to pass a clean bill to suspend the debt ceiling. This doesn’t add a single cent to the deficit - it means the Treasury is allowed to pay the bills for spending that Congress has already approved.
This action speaks not only to all Americans, but to the rest of the world as well, that the full faith and credit of the United States is not in question. Defaulting on our debt obligations would have put those in Missouri’s Fifth District, and around the country, at risk in many areas. Those areas include possibly delayed tax refunds, higher interest rates for mortgages, auto loans, student loans, and credit cards. We could have seen a drop in retirement savings, and a delay in benefits for disabled veterans and seniors. For example, a whopping 1.2 million people in Missouri have employer retirement plans that would have been affected. Over 183,000 students rely on student loans to go to college in Missouri. More than 201,000 Missourians took out a home mortgage, or refinanced their existing mortgage last year, and their rates could have increased had we not been able to take action on the debt ceiling. Taking bipartisan action averted a budget crisis and I am pleased we were able to work together to keep unnecessary and damaging consequences from impacting our finances – and our families.
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