3rd District Congressman Charles Boustany visited 'Mornings With Ken and Bernie' by phone today from Washington and discussed the Federal government shutdown, the debt ceiling and Obamacare.

When asked if the debt ceiling would be raised or if the Federal government would go into default on Thursday, October 17 Congressman Boustany said,

There's not a lot of wiggle room with that because on the 17th Treasury, this is our best estimate, will have about $30 billion on-hand and we know there are several bills coming due...Things like Social Security payments have to be made...A couple of bond roll-overs that have to be done.  Some veterans benefits.  It's going to be very difficult to cash-flow into November.

The biggest problem we face with a possible default according to Boustany is,

My concern is that today, tomorrow...if things are going in a positive direction the bond markets will be largely quiet but if things aren't going well we'll see some turbulence.  But if we get past the October 17th, Thursday date I think there's going to be bad economic consequences that we'll see.  It won't happen immediately but it will happen within a matter of days.  We've got to get something done.

When asked about his assessment of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare Congressman Boustany replied,

Remember I kept telling you the implementation would be a disaster?  That's what we're seeing now.  These 'exchanges' are not working and that's just the beginning.  I think if we had not got caught up in this budget mess that would be the dominate news and we would in a much better position to delay implementation...  I think tactical mistakes were made by Ted Cruz and several others that put us in a bad place from a negotiating standpoint.

To hear all of what Congressman Boustany had to say about the budget crisis and Obamacare take a listen to the interview:

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