Austan Goolsbee Quotes

I don't see why anybody's playing chicken with the debt ceiling.

The debt ceiling at some point has to be raised. I don't think there's anybody that questions the fact that if we ended up getting in a situation where the U.S. government was sending out IOUs like the state of California did at one point, that ends up creating quite a brand problem for our country.

Not raising the debt ceiling is not an automatic trigger for a default.

It is simply science fiction fantasy to say that, if you do not raise the debt ceiling, that everything is going to collapse.

Nobody wants to put the creditworthiness of the United States in jeopardy. Nobody wants to see the United States default. So we've got to seize this moment, and we have to seize it soon.

There was no avoiding the fact that we were going to hit our debt ceiling.

I do not want America to default on its debt.

I certainly don't want our nation to go into default, but at the same time, I'm very concerned about our ongoing debt problem.

The debt ceiling serves no useful purpose.

I'm not going to raise the debt ceiling.

If we reach the debt ceiling, we don't have to default. Getting to that point just won't allow us to reach new debt.

There's no debt limit in the Constitution.

I think it's important that people know what raising the debt ceiling is. It's Congress giving permission to the federal government to borrow more money that we don't have, and we borrow it for the purpose of spending it.

There is a very serious fiscal-policy question of, 'Are we running our overall fiscal policy such that we as a government can pay our bills?'

We can't continue to kick the can when it comes to the fiscal state of this country.

We need to get rid of the debt ceiling law. It's anachronistic and it's a problem.

But the debt limit obviously is something that needs to and will be passed. That is not inconsistent with a process and a belief that we have to get significant deficit reduction.

We've got to start worrying about America. And if we don't start dealing with the debt we have and the deficit spending we have in Washington, politics doesn't matter, because the American people do realize that they have to balance their budgets.

If you ask the question of Americans, should we pay our bills? One hundred percent would say yes. There's a significant misunderstanding on the debt ceiling. People think it's authorizing new spending. The debt ceiling doesn't authorize new spending; it allows us to pay obligations already incurred.

America pays its bills. It always has. It always will. The fact that Washington is now debating whether to honor its debts and obligations, then, should come as a surprise. But playing political football with a necessary vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling has become as predictable as a Twitter rant from Charlie Sheen.

Defaulting on our [national] debt is defaulting on America.

I always think a debt ceiling is a good tool to carry something.

We have to deal with the nation's debt.

Not raising the debt ceiling does not trigger a default, because we've got enough money to service our debts. Default is when you can't service your debt.

The federal government now spends one of every four dollars in the entire economy. It borrows one of every three dollars it spends. No nation, no entity, large or small, public or private, can thrive, or survive intact, with debts as huge as ours.