PRESIDENT OBAMA: If the world sees America not paying its bills, then they will not buy debt, Treasury bills from the United States, or if they do, they'll do it at much higher interest rates. That means somebody wanting to buy an F-150 will have to pay much higher interest rates eventually, which means you will sell less cars. That’s just one example of how profoundly destructive this could be. This is not some abstract thing.



And this is important: Raising the debt ceiling is not the same as approving more spending, any more than making your monthly payment adds to the total cost of your truck. You don’t say, well, I'm not going to pay my bill, my note for my truck because I'm going to save money. No, you're not saving money. You already bought the truck, right? You have to pay the bills. You're not saving money. You might have decided at the front end not to buy the truck, but once you've bought the truck you can't say you're saving money just by not paying the bills. Does that make sense?



So raising the debt ceiling, it doesn’t cost a dime. It does not add a penny to our deficits. All it says is you've got to pay for what Congress already said we're spending money on. If you don’t do it, we could have another financial crisis.