McCarthy: Biden Is Afraid

Kevin McCarthy

(DCWatchdog.com) – President Joe Biden is too “afraid to even negotiate” with Republicans about the federal budget and raising the debt ceiling, the GOP Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has stated.

McCarthy said a potential default on the US government’s loans, which could occur in the summer, would be the fault of Biden and the Democrats.

In January, the US reached the existing borrowing limit of $31.4 trillion, and the Democratic Party, which controls the White House and the Senate, has insisted Congress should raise it unconditionally.

However, Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, are demanding a deal to cut deficit spending and reduce the national debt over the next ten years.

Speaker McCarthy accused Biden of being too scared to discuss a debt ceiling deal in an interview on the Fox News program “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“[Biden is] jeopardizing Medicare and Social Security, because, for the first time in a 10-year window, not just the Highway Trust Fund, but Medicare and Social Security becomes insolvent, so it automatically gets cut,” the California Republican stated.

“This rests upon his feet, not because he made a bad decision. The real decision is, he’s afraid to even negotiate,” McCarthy argued further. Last week, the House Speaker proposed to his party a plan for a deal with the Democrats. His plan would up the debt ceiling by over $1 trillion but keep federal spending at its 2022 levels while limiting its growth to 1% annually.

The last time Biden and McCarthy met to discuss the debt ceiling was in February, The Hill pointed out in a report.

In his Sunday interview, McCarthy stressed that the Republican side was the one to have put forth a debt ceiling deal plan.

The House Speaker said he didn’t threaten Biden to allow the US to go into default.

“No, we’re the only ones in Washington that are actually putting a responsible plan out that will raise the debt limit,” McCarthy stated.

“Think about it. For more than 80 days it’s been since I sat down with the president on February 1 to negotiate, to work through this. And he’s ignored it,” he added.

“I’m beginning to wonder about the words that he says and the thoughts that he’s using, because the idea that he won’t even negotiate for more than 80 days, he is now putting the country in default. We are the only ones being responsible and sensible about this,” the Speaker elaborated.

Meanwhile, also on Sunday, Democrat US Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said Biden and McCarthy should negotiate on a debt limit deal so that they wouldn’t hold Americans’ mortgages “hostage.”

The Democrat senator blasted Speaker McCarthy’s deficit reduction plan.

“If you go forward as McCarthy wants, what will happen? You will literally see interest rates go up for mortgages, for loans. You’re going to see the stock market plummet again that we can’t afford,” the senator claimed.

“We have just come out of this pandemic, and our economy is strong. Unemployment is low. We don’t want to go the wrong way,” Klobuchar argued.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR