Washington, D.C. – Speaker Kevin McCarthy described a productive meeting in the ongoing negotiation to responsibly raise the debt limit. Though it should have happened months ago, there is a path for President Biden to avoid defaulting on the debt.
Highlights of Speaker McCarthy’s reaction included below.
“I’ve been very clear with the President from day one. We’re not going to raise taxes. We have more revenue coming into government in a 50-year average than any other time in history, only two other times did we have a higher percentage — but the problem is that we are spending more than almost any time in modern history. It’s a spending problem…”
“My whole goal here was, always from the beginning, we want to be responsible. Being responsible would have been to negotiate this like we wanted to, being reasonable that we would find common ground, being sensible that we spend too much money. Unfortunately, we are where we are today. Thankfully, the Republicans have passed a bill…”
“We’re going to find a baseline that we agree to that will be less than what we spent this year and appropriators are going to sit together and prioritize… how about helping people get back into the workforce so they pay into Social Security and Medicare. I don’t think its right to take from a hardworking taxpayer and go borrow from China to pay an able-bodied person with no dependents to sit on a couch.”
Quotes are from Speaker McCarthy’s fourth press conference of the day. You can find his comments from the White House here.