U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-9) traveled down to Washington to join his Democratic colleagues to pass an emergency bill to end the debt crisis and save the economy from certain collapse. He has been aggressive in warning about the consequences of the debt limit breach that Republicans have been threatening all year.

“Once again, Democrats are moving urgently to save America from complete economic catastrophe. I will vote to raise the debt ceiling for two years and avert this manufactured Republican crisis.

“All Americans must understand what is happening here. President Biden put forward a budget to boost opportunity for working Americans, increase access to health care and improve tax fairness. This responsible proposal would have reduced the deficit by about $3 trillion by requiring the wealthiest households and profitable corporations to pay a fairer amount of taxes. The Republican Default on America plan instead held our nation hostage to impose radical cuts that would hurt veterans, raise costs for hardworking families, hinder economic growth, and add over $3 trillion to our deficit through tax scams and giveaways skewed to the well-off and big corporations.

“Any real, sustainable plan to address our fiscal challenges must reform our unfair tax system. After decades of toiling to fix the IRS, Democrats took two steps forward to more fairly enforce our two tier tax code with our historic investments for the tax agency. Republicans made clear they will shield rich tax cheats at any price by cutting this historic investment. We need to properly fund this agency to close the tax gap. This agreement takes us one step backwards in our quest for tax fairness.

“After months of putting the full faith and credit of the United States at risk, Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans ended up with nothing remotely like their Default Act that promised the destruction of America’s economy. Republicans created this crisis and held our nation prisoner for months! Their hypocrisy and bad faith will be on full display in the coming weeks when they propose yet another multi trillion-dollar give away to the rich.

“The leadership of the Republican Party top to bottom represents a continuing and growing threat to democracy and our economy. Once again, Democrats have saved our nation.”