Chuck Schumer will hold hearings on ‘unpatriotic’ GOP ‘ransom note’ over debt ceiling
Ryan King
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is seeking to strike back following the Republicans’ surprise passage of a debt ceiling bill last week.
Schumer vowed to hold hearings on the Limit, Save, Grow Act, ripping the GOP for fast-tracking the measure he called “The Republican Default on America Act” and reiterated his insistence that a clean bill be brought forth to lift the nation’s borrowing authority.
BIPARTISAN SENATORS WORK ON SPENDING PROCESS WHILE DEBT CEILING FIGHT PLAYS OUT IN THE HOUSE
“Republicans sent a hard-right ransom note to the American people. The Republicans’ Default on America Act (DOA) offers two choices: either default on the debt or default on America, forcing steep cuts to law enforcement, veterans, families, teachers, and kids. Democrats will not allow it,” Schumer wrote in a letter to colleagues.
Under the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which narrowly cleared the lower chamber last week along party lines without a vote to spare, Republicans sought to slash a wide array of government spending in return for increasing the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion or until March 31, 2024, whichever comes first. Many on Capitol Hill openly questioned whether the GOP could even pass the bill.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has chided the Democrats, particularly President Joe Biden, for not sitting down with him to sort through their differences. Biden and Schumer have insisted on a debt ceiling increase without strings attached out of fears of emboldening the GOP from leveraging the specter of default in the future.
“McCarthy has surrendered to the far-right extremist members of his caucus and the DOA is their crown jewel. In backrooms, they pulled together a slew of unpatriotic and harmful policies that would take the country backwards,” the New York senator said.
“Put plainly, Republican’s Default on America Act pushes us closer to default,” he continued.
The speaker has also dared Schumer to bring up a clean debt limit bill for a vote in the upper chamber, implying that he lacks the votes to pass one. Schumer underscored that the bill would be dead on arrival in the Senate and vowed that the Democrats would do everything “we can to protect the American people and prevent a default.”
Spending reductions in the bill include a return to fiscal 2022 levels for most programs, except the military, with an annual cap of about 1% a year, below the historic rate of inflation.
Additionally, the legislation scraps Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, rolls back some green energy tax credits, rescinds unused COVID-19 funds, and enacts work requirements on some social services. In total, one iteration of the plan was projected to reduce the national deficit by $4.8 trillion over the next decade.
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The United States rammed into the $31.4 trillion debt limit back in January, and it has been buoyed by the Treasury Department’s “extraordinary measures” to keep funds flowing. Those measures are expected to run out between June and August, per various estimates.
Should that happen, the country faces the serious threat of a default.