U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander today spoke on the floor of the United States Senate about the debt ceiling votes, saying "I hope that the spirit of today and of tomorrow and of Sunday is that we spend less time plotting about how we can defeat each other's proposals as quickly as possible and more time working together to come up with ways to reduce spending and honor our obligations."

Senate Republicans called on Democrats and the president to reject political gamesmanship and budgetary gimmicks and work with Republicans to develop a real solution to our debt -- a solution that addresses the government's spending problem and honors our nation's obligations without crippling our economy by raising taxes on already struggling families and businesses.