Bipartisan Budget Briefing a ‘Good Start’ for Cooperation on Debt Reduction

Democrats and Republicans met on March 8 for a rare, joint briefing. They heard a presentation from the Congressional Budget Office regarding the national outlook on financial health.

Although the news was sobering it was meant to help people understand the facts. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R.Calif.), hopes that this will result in bipartisan cooperation to address the nation’s greatest problem, the national debt.

“I went to [Minority] Leader Kim Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to get us together to learn the dire straits that we are currently in and to work together. No one party can solve this. The country wants us to work together,” McCarthy spoke.

CBO reported that Highway, Medicare and Social Security will all soon be insolvent. McCarthy claimed that over the next decade Americans will be paying $10.5 trillion in interest for the national debt. That is higher than any interest payments from the previous 80 years.

The speaker also stated that income for the federal government has been higher than it was at any point in its history. However, unchecked government spending drives the country into deep debt.

“What I wanted to accomplish with this is a series of discussions so we can sit down in a professional manner, the way America wants us to, to be responsible, to be reasonable, and to stop the runaway spending and put us on a path to a budget that will reduce inflation,” McCarthy spoke.

Bipartisan briefing took place the day prior to President Joe Biden’s 2024 Federal Budget proposal. It is anticipated that the budget will reduce the federal debt in part through tax increases on wealthy Americans and large corporations.

“I do not believe that raising taxes is the answer. I’ve had this discussion with the president,” McCarthy spoke.

President and Speaker met on February 2 to discuss the nation’s debt. It was a positive meeting, but it did not result in a solution.

“I believe we could find common ground. It won’t be new taxes,” McCarthy spoke. “Raising taxes in a low-growth economy like this will only hurt us more and put us into recession.”

Jodey Arrington, a Republican from Texas and Chairman of the House Budget Committee said that the country has hit an inflection point regarding its national debt.

“We cannot defy the laws of economic gravity forever,” He said.

“We will triple our interest payments over 10 years, from a half-trillion to one-and-a-half trillion. We will pay more to service the debt than to pay for all of the United States’ National Defense,” Arrington spoke.

National debt currently stands at $31.4 trillion. This is also the limit statutory known as the debt plafond. Biden, along with prominent Democrats like Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer from New York, has called for Congress to adopt a national debt ceiling. “clean” The debt ceiling will rise with no reductions in federal spending.

McCarthy, and at most one Democrat (Sen. Joe Manchin) called upon the President to lower spending in order to decrease the federal debt’s growth.

‘What the speaker did today,” Arrington said, “helps all of us diffuse the emotions behind this, the politics behind it, and say, ‘We can agree to disagree on our vision, and our plans and, our strategies to … put us on a sustainable path and to save the country from a debt crisis. We can only disagree about the math.”