House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with host Maria Bartiromo to demand that President Joe Biden return to the negotiating table for debt ceiling negotiations, and also to accuse the president of stifling chances of a deal with his statement calling a Republican spending proposal “wacko” and “irresponsible.”
I think as president and the leader of the free world, this is one of the problems.
We have challenges around this country, around the world. He needs to show leadership and come to the negotiating table instead of putting us in default. This is risky, what he’s doing.
He then mentioned Biden’s latest bananas idea that we should force home buyers with good credit to subsidize those whose credit rating stinks [emphasis mine]:
He’s threatening the markets. Think of his ideas in the next month. If you actually have good credit, you pay more. If you have bad credit, you get a discount. Who believes in these types of ideas?
This goes against everything, what America was created upon that if you work hard, you can succeed, and that’s the difference. Come to the table, negotiate and do what is right.
Watch:
McCarthy charged that the president hasn’t bothered to respond to Republicans’ latest budget proposal, which would raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion, but only in return for cuts to the IRS, the budget-busting green energy agenda, and unused COVID funding. Biden is simply refusing to have a discussion, McCarthy said:
This rests upon his feet, not because he made a bad decision. The real decision is he’s afraid to even negotiate.
As RedState‘s Mike Miller reported, not only is the president not negotiating, but he’s slamming the GOP every chance he gets. McCarthy responded to Biden’s claim that Republicans are trying to cause a default on the debt:
We’re the only ones in Washington that are actually putting a responsible plan out that will raise the debt limit.
Think about it; for more than 80 days it’s been since I sat down with the president on February 1st to negotiate, to work through this, and he’s ignored it.
McCarthy hopes to have a House vote on a budget proposal next week. If it passes, it will head to the Senate. He says not everyone will get everything they want, but it’s better than Biden’s wallet-busting, tax-hiking $6.9 trillion proposal:
“I cannot imagine someone in our conference that would want to go along with Biden’s reckless spending. This is responsible. This is something that we have sat down for months that everybody’s had input in,” McCarthy said. “It’s not where everybody gets 100% of what they want, but when we send this to the Senate, we’re showing that, yes, we’re able to raise the debt ceiling into the next year.”
Like every other household in America—if Washington wants to spend more, it needs to save more somewhere else.
This isn’t controversial—it’s common sense. I invite the President to get serious and join Republicans at the table.
— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) April 23, 2023
The consequences of a default would be disastrous, and the United States has never experienced one. The National Conference for State Legislators lays out some of the possible effects if the unthinkable were to happen:
The U.S. government could not create more debt by selling new bonds, thus halting the flow of federal funds. And, minting a trillion-dollar coin is purely theoretical. So, in a practical sense, Social Security and federal pension payments might cease; federal agencies would furlough employees; vital economic services such as the post office, Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Customs and the Federal Aviation Administration would stop without an emergency stopgap measure by Congress and the president.
Defaults have been threatened by both sides many times before, and so far leaders have always been able to negotiate a compromise. If we’re going to avert a crisis this time, Biden is going to have to curb his insane spending habits.
