SCHWEIKERT ON DEBT CEILING VOTE:

“Right now I am a ‘no.’ Because I’m not sure I see enough movement to do those things that are necessary, whether it be the combination of the short term, mid-term, long-term. You have to do a whole series of systemic changes if you are going to save this country.”

SCHWEIKERT ON WHAT A ‘YES’ VOTE REQUIRES:

“If you and I tomorrow put together a package saying, here’s what we are willing to cut immediately; over the next year; over the next 10 years. Layered on top of that, Senator Mike Lee and myself have a balanced budget amendment that I believe is the strongest, tightest of all of them because it avoids some of the gimmicks. You might start to put together a package that provides visibility for our citizens, but also the world market for them to know the United States is getting serious about dealing with its debt.

“The reality of it is we bleed $4.7 billion every single day. Every single day we borrow $4.7 billion. You are going to have to do everything. And you are also going to have to have an honest discussion about the entitlements. You hear us have the discussion about Medicare. Medicare hits a brick wall stunningly soon … This place is engaged in rhetoric instead of reality.

“We literally have to be in the trillions over the next decade. We are borrowing $1.6 trillion just this year. These folks that make the comments of ‘this is too hard, it’s too tough,’ they are not telling the truth to the American people about how dangerous this spiraling of debt is.”

SCHWEIKERT ON WHERE DEMOCRATS STAND ON DEBT CEILING VOTE:

“You have 100 Democrats that apparently have signed a letter to Speaker Boehner saying ‘we want a clean debt vote.’ Fine, they are about to get their clean debt vote. But for everyone that will vote to raise this debt ceiling, I think they are being absolutely duplicitous and not telling the American people the truth. If you don’t tie a series of systemic changes in how we are spending our money, I believe the debt markets would crush us. They would start to raise our risk premium, raise interest rates if we were just to raise the debt ceiling without changes.

“Sunday, if you watched some of the talking head shows, how many times did you see the Democrat Member get up in front of the camera and say if we would just tax the rich or big oil? They are lying to you. Those together don’t even buy you three days of borrowing. What are you going to do with the other 362 days?”