'This Week' Transcript 5-21-23: Rep. Jodey Arrington and Sen. Chris Van Hollen
Interview
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Well, my reaction is, the president's had almost 100 days without engaging the process now. He's -- his back is against the wall. We have one proposal that has passed the House. Nobody else has put a proposal on the table. So, he needs to respond to that proposal and now he's, I believe, just making more excuses not to negotiate a responsible debt ceiling deal that will raise the debt ceiling, pay our bills, protect the good faith and credit of the United States, but also deal with the spending problem that's driving the inflation crisis and some of the economic woes that we're experiencing, along with just this massive and unsustainable debt that we're carrying as a country.
So, I hope he changes his tune and I hope in his conversation with Speaker McCarthy that it's more productive and more focused, again, on the one proposal that has passed -- Republicans put forward and passed out of the House.
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No, because you couldn't get tax policies and tax revenues in the Senate bill. We certainly weren't going to put it in the House bill. So, number one, it's not on the table for discussion. Number two, taxes right now would only be passed onto consumers in higher prices. So, we would exacerbate inflation.
And our -- our economy is growing now at just 1.1 percent GDP. That's down over the last three quarters. We're heading into recession. The last thing we want to do is add another tax. The president and Democrats passed out of the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, taxes on businesses, taxes on energy, taxes on investment. This is not the time to put a tax on our economy or on working families. The president, again, needs to deal with the proposal that passed the House.
And our country is spending at war-time levels, Martha. Almost 25 percent relative to GDP. We haven't spent that much since we invaded Normandy. I think the American people understand that the cost of living crisis that they're suffering with is as a result of spending, not because we have low taxes. The fact is, we have record taxes going into Covid and we had another record tax revenue year in 2021.
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Well, let's give some context to the discretionary budget. Our federal government is 40 percent bigger today than it was going into Covid. Secondly, the -- the president was the lead negotiator in 2011 for a 10-year spending cap deal and he was doing that in the context of a debt ceiling negotiation. So, this isn't unprecedented. Even the president's own budget, if you look at his 10-year budget resolution proposal that he introduced about a month ago, he has $2.7 trillion in discretionary cuts. If you annualize that, that's over $200 billion a year. We're talking about going back to $130 billion. That's what we were spending as a nation, discretionary, just six months ago.
So, this is more than reasonable, but we have to get back to pre-Covid, pre-inflationary spending. We've got to right size and reign in this bureaucratic bloat that we've pulled out of Covid and that -- and we've got to deal with that legacy and efficiency.
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Martha, I would suggest that Republicans won't let it happen because we passed a debt ceiling proposal that raises the debt ceiling, and it does it responsibly. And we are the only chamber, we are only -- the only part of this tri-part negotiation that's actually done its job.
The president has to respond. He has not submitted a single proposal, and the fact is, he hasn't engaged the process in over three months. And Chuck Schumer in the Senate hasn't put a single dollar amount, not even an alternative proposal with alternative spending reduction.
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And he knows he can't pass a clean debt ceiling.
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Well, we listened to Janet Yellen and her warning that we needed to move with urgency and purpose, and we did. And the House Republicans did it.
The question is, will President Biden listen to Janet Yellen, his own secretary, and with the window closing, on the X date, the default date, and respond?
We've done our job. The president and the Senate hasn't put a single job or two (ph) on paper. Not a counteroffer. Not their own proposal.
So, I -- if there's -- if we get close to the date, to the default date, and if there's any impact on the markets, it's because this president and Chuck Schumer have been more interested in posturing on the debt ceiling than rolling up their sleeves and working with Republicans to negotiate a final deal.
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Thank you, Martha.
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