‘Going to Be A Knife Fight’: House GOP Fighting Biden Administration On Raising Debt Ceiling

Hank BerrienJanuary 16, 2023

House Republicans, led Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker, have reaffirmed their commitment to reduce spending before raising the federal debt limit.

Friday: letter McCarthy was warned by Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary, that Congress should not block raising the federal debt limit. She claimed that increasing the debt limit would result in McCarthy losing her job. “does not authorize new spending commitments or cost taxpayers money.”

But on Sunday, the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, Republican James Comer of Kentucky, stated on CNN’s State of the Union, “We hope that the Senate, Democrats and Republicans will agree to spending cuts. Look, this has to stop.”

“We cannot continue to operate with these types of deficits,” He continued. “Our national debt is one of our biggest threats to our national security. China continues to have leverage over us because of the basic financial strength of their overall economy vs. ours with respect to the national debt.”

“Republicans were elected with a mandate from the American people in the midterm elections,” Comer declared. “We campaigned on the fact that we were going to be serious about spending cuts. So, the Senate is going to have to recognize the fact that we’re not going to budge until we see meaningful reform with respect to spending.”

Tony Gonzales (Texas GOP Rep.) speaking On “Fox News Sunday,” echoed, “The debt ceiling is no doubt going to be a knife fight.”

“We don’t want to put any fiscal problems through our economy, and we won’t,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Last week. “But fiscal problems would be continuing to do business as usual. I remembered when Trump was President and Nancy Pelosi was Speaker that became a debt ceiling agreement, and it was a cap agreement for two years, to cap the spending and make those decisions.”

“This is something that people have utilized,” He said. “But I ask all of you and all Americans if you have a child and you give them a credit card and they spend the limit, so you increase the limit again and again and again, when does it end? We’ve got to change the way we are spending money wastefully in this country, and we’re going to make sure that happens.”

McCarthy concluded “To get a debt ceiling, they also got a cap on spending for the next two years. Spending is out of control here. There’s been no oversight, and we cannot continue around the same process.”