Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday on Fox News that the GOP is using the “same playbook” as Democrats in their efforts to not remove the debt ceiling from President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
Since the bill passed the House on Thursday, a group of GOP senators, including Paul, have spoken out about their concerns with the package. Fox host Shannon Bream asked the lawmaker on “Fox News Sunday” whether taking out the debt ceiling increase would give Democrats leverage to “drag out” the fight later on, compared to leaving it in while the GOP holds the majority.
“Well, they want to take it out of this bill because it is a walk of shame,” Paul said. “Every time the debt ceiling raises, the people who’ve been voting for the spending have to walk in shame to the front of the House or the front of the Senate and say, ‘Yes, I’ve been voting for all these deficits pending and now I’m willing to vote to raise the debt ceiling.’”
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“But I would say the opposite. I offered an amendment two weeks ago to raise the debt ceiling for three months. That’s $500 billion, believe it or not, for three months. The reason I do it every three months and force the vote is it’s a point of leverage,” Paul added.
Prior to passing in the House, the bill had already faced pushback from Republican representatives. The final vote was 215-214-1, with two congressional Republicans voting no alongside Democrats and one voting “present.”
Paul has been an outspoken critic of the “big, beautiful bill,” telling reporters Thursday he is already a hard no on voting yes for the package unless the debt ceiling is removed.
After speaking with conservatives on Thursday, the Kentucky lawmaker stated his concerns with the debt ceiling, stressing that raising it would cause the U.S. to face a yearly deficit of an estimated $2 trillion over the next two years.
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“It’s an inflection point at which we can look back at leadership and said, ‘Hmm, you promised you were going to cut spending. Oh, you promised tomorrow. You promised next week. You promised next year. But you know what? You’re not doing it. So I’m not going to raise it again,’” Paul continued.
“So this leverage would work if you do it for two years, you’re right,” Paul said. “It goes through all the elections, goes on the back burner and the debt accumulates like it always had. This is more of the same. This is what the Democrats have always done. This is Republicans using the same playbook.”
In response to Paul’s pushback, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson later appeared on the Fox News show, stating why the debt ceiling is a “necessary” part of getting the package through the Senate.
“That’s critically important to do, we have to do it, we’re not going to have any Democrats to assist on that so to get it through the Senate and not crash the U.S. economy and default on our debts for the first time in history it has to be part of the reconciliation package and that’s why President Trump and all the other Republicans in Congress House and Senate understand the necessity of this,” Johnson said.
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“Real quick, important point here, it does not mean that we’re going to spend more money,” Johnson added. “We’re extending the debt ceiling to show to creditors the bond market, the stock market, that the Congress is serious about this. President Trump has dialed in 100%. He is a visionary leader. He does not want to spend more money and he has the same concern about the national debt that Rand Paul and I do.”
In addition to Paul’s concerns over the debt ceiling, other Republican senators have raised issues with potential cuts to Medicaid, the approval of Biden-era green energy subsidies and a cap on state and local tax deductions.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
