The government shutdown is about to hit its third week, and the members of the House and Senate seem no closer to reaching a compromise. As if the almost 900,000 furloughed employees or the estimated $2.5 billion in unpaid salaries (Enigmo) wasn't bad enough, Congress is now about 3 days away from allowing America's first ever default on the national debt. Elizabeth Warren has said that, despite some Senate Republicans claims that a default is acceptable, a failure to pay the national debt would be catastrophic for America and the entire global economy. Addressing the Senate on Thursday, Warren made dire predictions about the the consequences of a default. She began by reminding her colleagues in Congress of what happened in 2011 when the possibility of not paying the debt was even considered: "The interest rate increase from the last time the US even talked about default cost the government $19 billion (Youtube)." She continued by stating that toying with the possibility of default caused our credit rating to fall and was the equivalent of simply flushing money down the drain. Actually not paying our debts, she warned, would be unthinkable.
She explained that the US has two types of debts: payments on US bonds which are usually owed to foreign nations and money to the American people for things like social security, paychecks and retirement checks. A failure to pay either of these types of debts would be horrific. "The idea that we can somehow renege on our debts without paying a huge price is a fantasy," She said. It is likely that this address was only partially meant for her colleagues in Congress, who, hopefully, should already know the facts she was laying out. It was more likely that it was meant for the American people. To lay out in a straightforward way what the national debt is and the consequences of not paying it (Death and Taxes). She was telling people that the Republicans in Congress who seem content with a default are playing a dangerous game with the lives of every American to the tune of "$75 billion a year in additional interest rate payments."
For Warren, this was a week of appealing to her constituents and explaining in no uncertain terms what this shutdown is doing to them, and what it will continue to do to them. On Friday, she wrote a letter to the people of Massachusetts published in the Hampshire Gazette. She talked about how this shutdown is hurting the people and is "piling onto the damage already caused by the idiotic sequester (Gazettenet)." Her appeal to her constituents explained how across Massachusetts, 8,000 people are already furloughed, with a possible 4,600 on the way. She talked about the 394,000 veterans who are being denied pension checks and students who are being left behind due to a pending hit to Head Start. Warren is clearly furious, and she let them know. She told them that Senate Democrats put forward reasonable compromises, but were thwarted at every turn by Republicans. At a time when people are being seriously hurt by the inaction of Congress, she goes out of her way to remind the people back home that she is there for them, and she is doing her best to fix this problem without giving in to the "obstructionist" Republican demands that Obamacare be gutted. She refuses that option, she says, because it "is already helping to make health care more affordable and accessible for millions of Americans." She makes sure that the readers know that she would never do anything that would hurt them or violate their trust in her.
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