Word: debt
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...back as May, Treasury Secretary George Humphrey warned that the debt ceiling might have to be raised. But the Administration never faced up to asking Congress to take action until the day before the scheduled adjournment. Without consulting congressional leaders in advance, Humphrey and Budget Director Joseph Dodge, backed by Ike, decided on a last-minute blitz...
Byrd took the floor for one of his rare speeches. "A debt limit of $275 billion," he said, "is as much or more than this country should be called on to stand . . . An increase in the debt limit at this time would be misunderstood...
...following morning, 13 Senators and Representatives were invited to breakfast at the White House. Then, for two hours and 15 minutes, they listened to Humphrey and Dodge, armed with charts and graphs, lay down the "hard, cold fiscal facts." Said Humphrey: "If Congress refuses to increase the debt limit, we just will run out of money, and we can't pay our bills, and that is all there is to it . . . I think it would just cause a near panic...
...about the opinion, held by some lawyers, that the Administration had a legal right, despite the debt ceiling, to borrow enough money to cover any appropriations voted by Congress? Humphrey answered: "I don't think any of that very interesting legal argument amounts to a damn, because we have got to sell bonds. If you have got some money in your pocket and I offer .you a bond, and somebody says, 'I don't know, there is a big legal argument over whether that is a good bond or not,' you just...
...fiscal facts were impressive-but so were the hard, cold political facts. Congressional Republicans were inclined to agree with New York's Representative Frederic Coudert that the Administration had put Congress in "a cruel and bitter dilemma." The party that for 20 years had fought a mounting federal debt was in the position of asking for an increase in a statutory debt limit that had stood for seven years...