Schumer says GOP fears hearings on House debt limit proposal: ‘Bill was so bad’
Samantha-Jo Roth
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) defended his plans to have committees hold hearings on the debt ceiling bill passed last week by the House, denying it gives Republicans the ability to “emphasize their argument.”
By holding hearings on the legislation, Schumer indicated it was an effort by Senate Democrats to publicly pick the legislation apart while also slamming House Republicans for not advancing the legislation through the committee process before they passed it.
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“It’ll be the first opportunity Republicans have ever had to emphasize it,” Schumer said during a press conference on Wednesday. “Despite what McCarthy said, when he opened up the House, that they were going to have hearings, they were going to have amendments, they were going to have discussions, this bill was so bad that they were afraid to do that. So, we’re doing that for them. We welcome and relish the discussion in committee tomorrow.”
The Senate Budget Committee, led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), will hold a hearing on Thursday on the proposal. The House narrowly passed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) debt ceiling bill last Wednesday along party lines with a 217-215 vote, with just four Republicans voting against the measure.
The legislation pairs nearly $4.8 trillion in deficit reduction measures with a debt limit increase into the next year. The bill would freeze spending at last year’s levels for a decade and would also roll back parts of President Joe Biden’s expansive health, climate, and tax law, expand mining and fossil fuel production, and impose work requirements on social programs.
The bill comes after Republicans, for months, tried and failed to unite around a specific budget blueprint that would detail spending cuts they want in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. But instead of a budget, Republicans unveiled the Limit, Save, Grow Act.
McCarthy accepted Biden’s invitation to meet with him and other top congressional leaders at the White House on May 9 on Tuesday, ending a months-long impasse between the two leaders over the looming deadline.
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Schumer also defended the fact that the Senate has not tried to pass a debt ceiling increase without spending cuts.
“We’re going to have our meeting on the ninth, and we’ll see the best course of action after that,” he said.