The White House issued a strongly worded statement denouncing Republican brinksmanship over the debt limit on Saturday, moments after the U.S. Treasury announced that it would not mint a $1 trillion platinum coin in order to ensure the nation’s creditworthiness should Congress fail to raise the debt ceiling.
“There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills or it can fail to act and put the nation into default,” said spokesman Jay Carney. “When Congressional Republicans played politics with this issue last time, putting us at the edge of default, it was a blow to our economic recovery, causing our nation’s credit rating to be downgraded. The President and the American people won’t tolerate Congressional Republicans holding the American economy hostage again simply so they can force disastrous cuts to Medicare and other programs the middle class depend on while protecting the wealthy. Congress needs to do its job.”
