Over 100 House Republican members declared that they will not raise the debt ceiling in a letter written to the American people, adding that it is Democrats who should take responsibility for making the change to the debt limit because of their continued “spending spree.”
“Democrats have embarked on a massive and unprecedented deficit spending spree. Without a single Republican vote, they passed a $1.9 trillion ‘Covid relief’ bill in March,” the letter, signed by 103 House Republicans, says. “Now they have passed a $3.5 trillion Budget Resolution, again without a single Republican vote.”
“The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has calculated that a more honest score of this budget resolution will likely exceed $5 trillion,” the GOP members continued.
The Republicans are telling their Democrat colleagues that they need to reign in the spending since they have control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
“In order for this spending to occur, our nation’s debt limit will have to be increased significantly. Because Democrats are responsible for the spending, they need to take responsibility for increasing the debt ceiling. They have total control of the government, and the unilateral ability to raise the debt ceiling to accommodate their unilateral spending plans,” the GOP added.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) offices did not immediately return a request for comment on the GOP letter.
The debt limit suspension expired at the end of July and failure to increase or suspend the statutory limit—now at $28.5 trillion—could trigger another federal government shutdown or a debt default.
In order to prevent a default, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Aug. 2 announced a series of so-called “extraordinary measures” the department is taking to give the federal government more room to spend under a reimposed debt cap.
Yellen detailed the emergency maneuvers—chiefly pausing investments in certain government employee pension funds—in an Aug. 2 letter to congressional leaders that came as a two-year suspension of the federal debt ceiling expired.
The reimposed borrowing limit caps the federal debt at the current level of around $28.5 trillion, restricting the government’s ability to raise additional funds by selling government securities. The reinstated ceiling has forced Yellen, like her predecessors in prior administrations, to resort to emergency measures to allow the Treasury to keep meeting federal debt obligations.
The Republican members said that Congress should not default on their loans or claim they need GOP support to make an increase, writing, “Democrats, at any time, have the power through reconciliation to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling, and they should not be allowed to pretend otherwise.”
By Masooma Haq
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Letter: Over 100 GOP Members Will Not Vote to Raise Debt Ceiling
