Sen. Mike Lee said Monday morning that he’s convinced a majority of Senate Republicans will block any vote to raise the nation’s debt ceiling “without substantive spending and budget reforms.” He believes that will force President Joe Biden to negotiate with Republicans in Congress.
“We’re telling President Biden we’re not going to pass a clean debt ceiling increase, but want to raise the debt ceiling,” Lee said during a Monday morning appearance on “Fox & Friends.”
On Friday, Lee, along with 42 other Republicans, signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saying they would oppose any standalone legislation to raise the debt limit. It takes 60 votes to pass nearly all legislation in the Senate, which means there’s more than enough opposition to force spending cuts into the discussion. During the Trump administration, Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling without demanding spending cuts three times.
Increasing the nation’s debt limit does not authorize new spending but allows the government to pay for previously approved expenditures. The Treasury Department said the U.S. reached its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling on Jan. 19 and since have been using “extraordinary measures” to pay the government’s bills since. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin has warned if the debt ceiling is not raised, the government could default on its debt as soon as June 1.
Lee and his Senate GOP colleagues are backing legislation narrowly passed by House Republicans late last month, which raises the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion but slashes discretionary government spending and only allows a 1% increase over the next decade, The Associated Press reported. Biden has threatened to veto that legislation. A report from Moody’s Analytics warns the House GOP bill would “increase the likelihood” of a recession and lead to a loss of 780,000 jobs by the end of 2024.
“What this means is that the White House is going to have to come to the table and enter into real talks with the House Republicans,” Lee said.
Could Utah be impacted?
The White House says a 22% across-the-board budget cut mandated by the House bill would reduce federal grant dollars to Utah by at least $390 million.
Those reductions would include a $63 million reduction in federal funding for transportation infrastructure projects, a $17 million funding decrease for schools serving low-income students and a $1.5 million decrease in mental health support for students, according to a White House statement. The Biden administration also claims the budget cuts would reduce federal rental assistance for thousands of Utahns, lengthen wait times for Social Security and Medicare assistance and decrease medical care for more than 79,000 Utah veterans.
President Joe Biden is set to meet with the top four congressional leaders to discuss the debt limit situation on Tuesday, The Associated Press reported.
[READ: ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ poised to bring millions to Utah energy transition]
Rep. Blake Moore said Monday during a stop in Salt Lake City using the debt ceiling issue to force the White House to negotiate spending cuts is a good strategy. Still, Moore admitted Republicans probably wouldn’t be able to undo the “Inflation Reduction Act” Democrats passed last year.
“Are we going to be able to repeal the one major key piece of legislation that Democrats did with reconciliation? I don’t think we’re going to be able to do that. I’m being a realist here,” Moore said.
Moore was optimistic that Republicans could leverage the debt limit negotiations to enact parts of the sweeping energy bill the House passed in March.
Late last week, Sen. Mitt Romney agreed the Biden administration should negotiate with House Republicans on spending cuts as a condition for raising the debt ceiling. Romney did not sign Lee’s letter opposing a clean debt ceiling increase.
Lee has always wanted to cut spending
Coupling massive spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt ceiling has long been a goal of Lee’s. In 2011, Lee downplayed warnings of economic catastrophe if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling.
“I don’t think we have to assume that it’s catastrophic if we don’t approve an effort to raise the debt ceiling,” Lee told NPR’s Robert Siegel shortly after being sworn into office for the first time. “I think what would be catastrophic would be to continue to spend money that we don’t have. My inclination is to vote against any effort to do that, barring some serious commitment involving a serious compromise that would result in a serious effort to balance the budget.”
Lee’s current push to force spending cuts appears to be part of an effort by Republicans to defund the government because it’s too “woke.”
Rolling Stone reports Russell Vought, a former Trump administration official, is “spreading the gospel of budgetary anti-wokeism” and urging Republicans to use the debt ceiling to purge “wokeness” from government agencies, including ridding the Department of Housing and Urban Development of programs that promote social justice.
Lee invited Vought to address a lunch attended by roughly a dozen GOP Senators in January. Following that meeting, Lee tweeted an op-ed by Vought that called for linking “out-of-control spending” with removing “a woke and weaponized bureaucracy.”
