McCarthy: House Will Pass Debt-Ceiling Plan This Week

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Sunday insisted that the House will pass his $1.5 trillion debt ceiling increase plan this week, but acknowledged that the vote could be tight as there is only a “very small majority” where just five GOP defectors could kill his bill. 

“We will hold a vote this week and we will pass it,” the California Republican told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo, pointing out that he can’t imagine that there is anyone in the House Republican conference that will go along with President Joe Biden’s “reckless spending.”

McCarthy said his bill is “responsible” and that everyone had input on it, but it’s not one where everyone gets everything they want.

“But when we send this to the Senate, we’re showing that yes, we’re able to raise the debt ceiling into the next year,” he added. “What we’ ‘re doing is we’re being responsible fiscally and bringing our house back in order. It doesn’t solve all of our problems, but it gets us on the right path, and this gets us to the negotiating table just as the government and America expect us to do.”

Biden has lambasted the spending plan, saying last week that GOP lawmakers are threatening a historic default “unless I agree to all these wacko notions they have,” but McCarthy said Republicans are “the only ones in Washington that are putting out a responsible plan that will raise the debt limit.”

He also called on the Senate to address the nation’s debt, but he said he has his doubts about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in charge. 

“They don’t even have their senators show up for work,” he said. “The Senate has done nothing. Further, Biden “needs to show leadership” by negotiating, rather than putting the country in default, said McCarthy.

“This is risky, what he’s doing,” McCarthy said. “He’s threatening the markets. Think of his ideas. In the next month, if you have good credit, you pay more. If you have bad credit, you get a discount. Who believes in these types of ideas?”

But Biden has ignored the nation’s fiscal problem, “one of the greatest crises we have had,” said McCarthy. 

“Every great nation has collapsed when they’ve overextended themselves,” he said. “In the next ten years, we will now spend $10.5 trillion just on interest. From 1940 until today, we’ve only spent $9 trillion. That means 17.5% of everything the taxpayer puts in is just going to [pay]  interest on the debt. He weakens us.” 

Biden also added $6 trillion in COVID spending and created inflation, said McCarthy. 

“He’s creating inflation, making us dependent upon China, and then he’s 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 become insolvent,” he said.

“The Republicans are the only responsible ones who are looking at the future with the debt ceiling, looking at our fiscal house and getting that in order,” McCarthy added. “In 2011 we had a spending cap put in, and it saved us trillions of dollars. Do you know when Republicans were in power in the House for eight years, do you know how much discretionary spending went up? Not one dollar. We went down $10 billion and we grew.”

But when the Democrats took over, “they increased spending and brought us inflation,” said McCarthy. “They are spending more than 23% of the GDP, and the 50-year average is 21. He’s taking us to 25%.”

The speaker also discussed a call from Biden to bring more solar panels into America, saying he doesn’t agree with the plan out of fears of reliance on China. 

“What the president has done is not just about solar panels, it’s anything to do about China,” he said. “The dependency he continues to push especially in the energy field, but right now he just expanded the amount of money that government subsidizes for new renewable energy with these solar panels made in China.”

China’s power is also growing around the world, and that “stems from a weak leadership in our White House,” McCarthy said. 

“You know, Sec. [Robert] Gates was right when he said long before this president took office, every foreign policy this decision, this president has made for the last 40 years has been wrong, and he’s proving it,” said McCarthy. “He’s making us weaker, and we can’t sustain that much longer.”