John,

Since Republicans took over House leadership, they’ve focused on settling political scores but made no serious effort to do the job. Instead, they are taking us to the brink—refusing to pay the nation’s bills, playing chicken with the debt ceiling, risking a default that threatens the American economy. And for what? More tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and cuts to the services millions of Americans depend on, like Medicare, Social Security and even food programs benefiting hungry children. Each day, the threat of a default crisis grows. And even the threat itself causes problems.

We can’t wait. Members of Congress must hear from their constituents, and our neighbors need to know what’s happening, too.

Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper today telling your member of Congress to put political games aside and quickly pass a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling to prevent the United States from defaulting on the national debt.

Raising the debt ceiling doesn’t cost us a penny. But failing to raise the ceiling means the U.S. government won’t be able to pay its bills. This would cause tremendous economic harm. If Republican extremists in Congress let us default, it would:

• Threaten the earned benefits of seniors, veterans and families relying on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
• Compromise the ability of doctors and hospitals to provide services to patients with Medicare or Medicaid.
• Delay paychecks to National Guard, active military and federal workers, who do things like keep our food supply secure and our bridges safe for driving.
• Imperil critical state- and locally administered programs like Title I.
• Dramatically increase interest rates on products that people across the country use every day, from cars to mortgages to credit cards to student loans, while gutting 401(k) and retirement investments.
• Damage the full faith and credit of the U.S. government in the global economy.

Simply put, Congress must not permit a default on the debt limit. Make no mistake: This is a forced crisis, and the extreme wing of the GOP needs to stop playing this game now. Congress has a long history of working across the aisle to raise the debt limit with no strings attached—in fact, it did it three times when Trump was in the White House.

We cannot allow the GOP to let us default. The consequences to working folks are too high. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper to show Congress that our national economy is not a field for playing political games.

We know what’s at stake. Now we need you to add your voice.

In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President

P.S. To learn more about the debt ceiling, and to see the work the AFT has been doing to help working families, please visit our debt ceiling page at www.aft.org/debtceiling.