{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://web.archive.org/web/20140301151909/http://frankel.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/frankel-joins-colleagues-in-letter-to-speaker-boehner-urging-house-gop", "Frankel Joins Colleagues in Letter to Speaker Boehner Urging House GOP Leadership to End Threat of Another Government Shutdown or Default", "2013-10-31", "2013", "2013-10", "Democrat", "House", "FL", "Lois Frankel", "F000462", "web.archive.org", null, null, "legacy", "Boca Raton, FL\u2014 A day after budget negotiations began between Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate, Congresswoman Lois Frankel today joined 177 of her colleagues in a letter to Speaker John Boehner calling on him and House Republican leadership to publicly declare that they will not use the threat of a federal government shutdown or default as a political tactic in budget talks. Citing the economic damage caused by the recent 16-day government shutdown and threat of default, Frankel and the Members emphasized that Congress must work together to pass a responsible budget agreement and take the dual threats of a shutdown and default off the table.\n\u201cThe 16-day-long federal government shutdown is over and default on America\u2019s debt has been averted, although no one is relieved that this latest crisis ever occurred,\u201d the lawmakers wrote. \u201cThe most powerful source of uncertainty to American families and businesses is the threat of a government shutdown and default on our debts. That is why we are writing to you to urge you and your leadership to publicly declare that you will not again use the threat of a government shutdown or default as leverage in the important discussions regarding long-term deficit reduction and economic growth.\u201d\nOn October 16, Frankel voted for a bill that ended the reckless shutdown and made sure America paid its bills. That bill funds the government through January 15, 2014 and ensures American can pay its bills through February 7, 2014.\nThe full text of the group\u2019s letter is below:\nOctober 31, 2013\nHonorable John Boehner  \n\tSpeaker of the House  \n\tWashington, D.C.\u00a0 20515\nDear Mr. Speaker,\nThe 16-day-long federal government shutdown is over and default on America\u2019s debt has been averted, although no one is relieved that this latest crisis ever occurred.\u00a0 Now, we are deeply concerned that the American people are in danger of another shutdown or threat of default early next year.\nThe most powerful source of uncertainty to American families and businesses is the threat of a government shutdown and default on our debts. That is why we are writing to you to urge you and your leadership to publicly declare that you will not again use the threat of a government shutdown or default as leverage in the important discussions regarding long-term deficit reduction and economic growth.\nThe American people depend on their elected representatives to be problem solvers and get our work done. When we fail to do our job, however, it is not the American people who should pay the price for our inability to reach critical agreements.\nThe cost to our nation is too high. The absence of paychecks to hundreds of thousands of federal employees during the course of the shutdown caused real economic hardship to those employees and their families and to private businesses whose livelihoods were affected by the shutdown.\nRatings agencies and economists from across the political spectrum agree that the shutdown and threat of default took a real toll on our economy and that the possibility of repeating these crises is causing ongoing uncertainty and economic weakness.\n\u2022 Standard & Poor\u2019s estimated that the recent shutdown cost our economy $24 billion and reduced 4th quarter GDP growth by 0.6 percent. The shutdown triggered higher short-term interest rates, adding $100 million to the federal budget deficit in the last week of the shutdown alone.\u00a0 And Standard & Poor\u2019s said that the threat of another shutdown and possible default weighs heavily on the economy. \u201cThe short turnaround for politicians to negotiate some sort of lasting deal will weigh on consumer confidence, especially among government workers that were furloughed,\u201d the agency said in its October 16 report.  \n\t\u2022 Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody\u2019s Analytics, \u201csaid he has downgraded his projected growth for the gross domestic product for the last quarter of this year from 2.6 percent to 2.1 percent because of the shutdown and simply the threat that Congress would not raise the debt ceiling on time,\u201d according the Times-Tribune of Scranton, PA.  \n\t\u2022 Joel Naroff, founder of Naroff Economic Advisors, said the \u201cshutdown trimmed fourth-quarter growth by 20% - an outcome any business would \u2018consider a disaster\u2019,'' according to USA Today.  \n\t\u2022 Gennadiy Goldberg, economist at TD Securities, said, \u201c\u2019The recovery is on hold for another four months,\u2019 citing the unresolved differences in Washington over the government budget,\u201d according to Thompson/Reuters.  \n\t\u2022 And Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute for International Economics said, \u201cThis will accelerate the rate at which the Chinese renminbi becomes accepted \u2014 at least throughout Asia \u2014 as an alternative to the dollar, or Chinese government bonds become accepted as an alternative [to U.S. Treasurys],\u201d according to National Public Radio.\nThis sobering economic hardship should have never been visited upon the American people. The shutdown and threat of default were unnecessary and costly.\nCongress has voted itself 90 days to reach a long-term budget agreement. We respectfully request that Congress work hard to reach an agreement sooner than that and that you and your colleagues in leadership remove the threat of another shutdown or default on America\u2019s debt as a weapon in these talks.\nWe are working in good faith to meet our responsibilities and achieve the goals set out in last week\u2019s agreement to open the government and avoid default.\u00a0 All House Democrats and some Republicans voted for that agreement.\u00a0 By acting now to take the threat of another shutdown or default off the table you can provide certainty and economic relief that American families and privates businesses desperately need.\nSincerely,\nRep. Elizabeth H. Esty  \n\tRep. Ann McLane Kuster  \n\tRep. Xavier Becerra  \n\tRep. Pete P. Gallego  \n\tRep. Denny Heck  \n\tRep. Gerald E. Connolly  \n\tRep. Daniel B. Maffei  \n\tRep. Suzanna Bonamici  \n\tRep. Dina Titus  \n\tRep. Alan Grayson  \n\tRep. James P. McGovern  \n\tRep. John A. Yarmuth  \n\tRep. Janice Hahn  \n\tRep. Karen Bass  \n\tRep. Marc A. Veasey  \n\tRep. Joyce Beatty  \n\tRep. Joe Crowley  \n\tRep. Bradley S. Schneider  \n\tRep. Ann Kirkpatrick  \n\tRep. John Lewis  \n\tRep. James A. Himes  \n\tRep. Jackie Speier  \n\tRep. David N. Cicilline  \n\tRep. Frederica S. Wilson  \n\tRep. Michelle Lujan Grisham  \n\tRep. Kathy Castor  \n\tRep. Joaquin Castro  \n\tRep. Lloyd Doggett  \n\tRep. Anna G. Eshoo  \n\tRep. Michael F. Doyle  \n\tRep. David Scott  \n\tRep. Frank Pallone, Jr.  \n\tRep. Mark Pocan  \n\tRep. Timothy H. Bishop  \n\tRep. Cedric L. Richmond  \n\tRep. Mike Thompson  \n\tRep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz  \n\tRep. James E. Clyburn  \n\tRep. Henry Cuellar  \n\tRep. Paul Tonko  \n\tRep. John P. Sarbanes  \n\tRep. Ed Pastor  \n\tRep. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n  \n\tRep. Louise McIntosh Slaughter  \n\tRep. Richard M. Nolan  \n\tRep. Gene Green  \n\tRep. Andr\u00e9 D. Carson  \n\tRep. Daniel Lipinski  \n\tRep. Brian Higgins  \n\tRep. Michael H. Michaud  \n\tRep. William L. Enyart  \n\tRep. Betty McCollum  \n\tRep. John Garamendi  \n\tDel. Madeleine Z. Bordallo  \n\tRep. Doris O. Matsui  \n\tRep. Eddie Bernice Johnson  \n\tRep. John Conyers, Jr.  \n\tRep. Alcee Hastings  \n\tRep. Adam B. Schiff  \n\tRep. Joe Courtney  \n\tRep. Scott H. Peters  \n\tRep. Charles B. Rangel  \n\tRep. Steve Cohen  \n\tRep. Yvette D. Clark  \n\tRep. Bill Pascrell, Jr.  \n\tRep. Marcia Fudge  \n\tRep. Diana DeGette  \n\tRep. Luis V. Gutierrez  \n\tRep. Janice D. Schakowsky  \n\tRep. Rosa L. DeLauro  \n\tRep. Nita M. Lowey  \n\tRep. Linda T. S\u00e1nchez  \n\tRep. Sanford D. Bishop, Jr.  \n\tRep. Wm. Lacy Clay  \n\tRep. Peter A. DeFazio  \n\tRep. Rick Larsen  \n\tRep. Corrine Brown  \n\tRep. Marcy Kaptur  \n\tRep. David E. Price  \n\tRep. Danny K. Davis  \n\tRep. Elliot L. Engel  \n\tRep. Henry A. Waxman  \n\tRep. George Miller  \n\tRep. Maxine Waters  \n\tRep. Jos\u00e9 E. Serrano  \n\tRep. Lois Capps  \n\tRep. Elijah E. Cummings  \n\tDel. Eleanor Holmes Norton  \n\tRep. Stephen F. Lynch  \n\tRep. Jerrold Nadler  \n\tRep. Sheila Jackson Lee  \n\tDel. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan  \n\tRep. Eric Swalwell  \n\tRep. Alan S. Lowenthal  \n\tRep. Cheri Bustos  \n\tRep. Julia Brownley  \n\tRep. Theodore E. Deutch  \n\tRep. Ron Barber  \n\tRep. Timothy J. Walz  \n\tRep. Jim McDermott  \n\tRep. Lois Frankel  \n\tRep. Earl Blumenauer  \n\tRep. Loretta Sanchez  \n\tRep. Sam Farr  \n\tRep. Robert C. \"Bobby\" Scott  \n\tRep. Jerry McNerney  \n\tRep. Rush Holt  \n\tRep. Joseph P. Kennedy, III  \n\tRep. Bill Foster  \n\tRep. Allyson Y. Schwartz  \n\tRep. Tony C\u00e1rdenas  \n\tRep. Carol Shea-Porter  \n\tRep. David Loebsack  \n\tRep. Judy Chu  \n\tRep. Susan A. Davis  \n\tRep. Patrick Murphy  \n\tRep. Ra\u00fal M. Grijalva  \n\tRep. Grace F. Napolitano  \n\tRep. Niki Tsongas  \n\tRep. Sean Patrick Maloney  \n\tRep. Jim Cooper  \n\tRep. Gloria Negrete McLeod  \n\tRep. John K. Delaney  \n\tRep. Jared Huffman  \n\tRep. Juan Vargas  \n\tRep. Chris Van Hollen  \n\tRep. Michael M. Honda  \n\tRep. Collin C. Peterson  \n\tRep. Jim Costa  \n\tRep. Sander M. Levin  \n\tRep. Grace Meng  \n\tRep. Chellie Pingree  \n\tRep. Raul Ruiz  \n\tRep. Steven A. Horsford  \n\tRep. Zoe Lofgren  \n\tRep. John C. Carney, Jr.  \n\tRep. Ami Bera  \n\tRep. Ed Perlmutter  \n\tRep. Matt Cartwright  \n\tRep. Tim Ryan  \n\tRep. Jared Polis  \n\tRep. Derek Kilmer  \n\tRep. John B. Larson  \n\tRep. Joe Garcia  \n\tRep. Ron Kind  \n\tRep. Mark Takano  \n\tRep. Keith Ellison  \n\tRep. James P. Moran  \n\tRep. Peter J. Visclosky  \n\tRep. Rub\u00e9n E. Hinojosa  \n\tRep. Barbara Lee  \n\tRep. Chaka Fattah  \n\tRep. Nydia M. Vel\u00e1zquez  \n\tRep. Peter Welch  \n\tRep. G.K. Butterfield  \n\tRep. Carolyn B. Maloney  \n\tRep. John D. Dingell  \n\tRep. Lucille Roybal-Allard  \n\tRep. Albio Sires  \n\tRep. Carolyn McCarthy  \n\tRep. Brad Sherman  \n\tRep. Gwen Moore  \n\tRep. Emanuel Cleaver  \n\tRep. Robert E. Andrews  \n\tRep. Bruce L. Braley  \n\tDel. Donna M. Christensen  \n\tRep. Robin Kelly  \n\tRep. Robert A. Brady  \n\tRep. Donald M. Payne, Jr.  \n\tRep. Tammy Duckworth  \n\tRep. James R. Langevin  \n\tRep. Suzan DelBene  \n\tRep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger  \n\tRep. Daniel T. Kildee  \n\tRep. Hakeem S. Jeffries  \n\tRep. Steve Israel  \n\tRep. Al Green  \n\tRep. John F. Tierney  \n\tRep. William R. 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