Schumer dares House GOP to introduce debt ceiling bill: ‘Republicans say they want spending cuts’
Virginia Aabram
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) dared House Republicans to bring forward a bill that details the spending cuts the party wants in exchange for raising the debt limit as the new GOP majority barrels toward a debt ceiling stalemate with the Senate and the White House.
In a floor speech on Friday, Schumer accused the House GOP of “saying yes to brinkmanship, yes to hostage-taking, and yes, even to risking default, all because of draconian spending cuts pushed by the hard Right.”
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The Treasury Department announced that the United States had reached the federal borrowing limit last week and would begin “extraordinary measures” to avoid defaulting on its debts, with those measures set to expire as early as June.
“House Republicans, you voted for rules that require regular order for bringing bills to the floor. So, put your proposals for the debt ceiling on the floor, let the entirety of the House debate it and vote on it, and let the American people see and assess these cuts for themselves,” Schumer said. “Otherwise, Americans are going to be left with some pretty big questions.”
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) agreed not to raise the borrowing limit without spending cuts as part of an agreement with hard-line members of his party in order to be elected speaker. The move, lauded by the right wing of the party and fiscal conservatives, is a break from the last decade, with both parties having authorized debt increases without a major showdown.
Republicans have signaled resistance to significant cuts to the defense budget, leaving social spending and other domestic programs available for paring down. Schumer asked, “Does that mean cuts to Social Security or Medicare, or childcare or Pell grants or our military, or pay raises for our troops or funding police and law enforcement?”
McCarthy has pushed to meet with President Joe Biden to begin negotiations. The two agreed last week to sit down at the White House at a future date.
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“I want to sit down with him now so there is no problem,” McCarthy said on Fox News. “I’m sure he knows there’s places that we can change that put America on a trajectory that we save these entitlements instead of putting it into bankruptcy the way they have been spending.”
The debt currently stands at $31.7 trillion, and defaulting on payment could lead to severe economic fallout.