mr. bentsen is the president of the securities industry and financial market association. he previously served as a congressman for the 21st district of texas. mr. gary thomas is the president of the national association. he's been in the real-estate business for more than 45 years. and finally, mr. paul schott stevens is the president and ceo of the investment company institute. previously he served as special assistant for the national security affairs to president ronald reagan. mr. keating, you may proceed. >> chairman johnson and ranking member of crapo, i am frank keating, ceo of the american bankers association. as noted i previously served two terms as the governor of oklahoma and recently was a member of the bipartisan policy centers debt reduction task force. i appreciate the opportunity to be here to discuss the need to raise the debt ceiling and the consequences of failing to do so. let me be very clear. we need to meet our obligations and not create any uncertainty that we will do so on time every time. in this country, our word is our bond. the respect and adm

mr. bentsen elaborate on your prioritization and the effects of the market. treasury secretary news said prior to authorization is the fault of the other day the we have hundreds of dollars maturing between october 17 and the end of the month, 93 billion october 21st. we look at the investors' willingness to rollover so mr. stevens you talk about confidence and how confident can we be that they would be willing to roll over the debt that we cannot repay some creditors? >> if you think of a household that relies on a bank for financing if the bank finds out they choose to pay some bills but not others does not inspire great confidence to continue to the end to the extent that it does it will charge a higher interest-rate. and that is the analogy that the confidence of this vast market of lenders that we depend upon the level of $17 trillion to take a blow in respective of which bills >> it is true we have tried had this experience before? we have had enacted decision made to pay some debts but not others? >> well said. i yield back my time. >> up next efforts

mr. bentsen? >> i was going to say two things. one is voluntarily defaulting on the debt is just something that, to me, doesn't make any logical sense. it'll create huge operational problems in the financial markets that will permeate across the markets as pointed out the treasuries are used in escrows, it'll affect municipal bond issues for every state in the union, it'll have dramatic consequences in liquidity and could create crises if it were to go on for some period of time. even some potential work arounds to deal with defaulted coupons. but the other thing with respect to the long-term fiscal condition, to default voluntarily would make resoing the long-term fiscal -- resolving the long-term fiscal imbalances just that much more difficult. so it seems to me that it doesn't make any sense to do so if you don't have to. >> mr.-- [inaudible] >> you know, from the real estate perspective i think that we would have, we would fall back into a deeper recession. there's no doubt in my mind that that would happen. if we reached a de