Thirty-five Republican House lawmakers sent a letter on Thursday to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., urging three specific actions regarding the debt ceiling as a deal has yet to be reached.
“As a result of your skilled leadership since your consequential election in January, Congressional Republicans have not been so united in decades,” the lawmakers wrote. “This unity is the most dynamic force for positive, transformational change in a Washington that wallows in stagnation and fecklessness.”
“The power of an undivided Republican Party guided by conservative principles cannot be overstated. As you navigate the debt limit debate, you are the steward of this unity and will determine whether it continues to strengthen and places a historic stamp on this Congress or evaporates,” the lawmakers wrote. “We firmly believe the best means to preserve Republican unity is to deploy it, and we urge three specific actions.”
These actions are:
1) In response to the president’s preposterous position, we encourage you to add additional provisions to the Limit, Save, Grow Act, such as the inclusion of the recently passed Secure the Border Act and the end to funding for the FBI’s massive (larger than the Pentagon) new headquarters.
2) Since [Treasury] Secretary [Janet] Yellen will not testify in the House until June 7, we should demand publicly and in your negotiations that the Treasury immediately furnish a complete justification of the June 1 projection [of when the Treasury will no longer have enough money to pay all of the nation’s bills] and the exact fiscal situation expected thereafter, including Treasury’s payment prioritization plan.
3) We urge you to combine two of the most popular provisions of the Limit, Save, Grow Act—clawing back unspent COVID funds and repealing Democrats’ funding for 87,000 new IRS agents—and move them swiftly through the House as a standalone measure that enables us to extend the “X-date” through June.
Some of the letter’s signatories include Reps. Scott Perry, R-Pa., House Freedom Caucus chairman; Chip Roy, R-Texas; Bob Good, R-Va.; Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.; Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.; Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.; Dan Bishop, R-N.C.; Ralph Norman, R-S.C.; and Byron Donalds, R-Fla.
Other signatories include Reps. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla.; Ken Buck, R-Colo.; Tim Burchett, R-Tenn.; Eric Burlison, R-Mo.; Ben Cline, R-Va.; Michael Cloud, R-Texas; Andrew Clyde, R-Ga.; Eli Crane, R-Ariz.; Warren Davidson, R-Ohio; Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn.; Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.; Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.; Andy Harris, R-Md.; Diana Harshbarger, R-Tenn.; Clay Higgins, R-La.; Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla.; Mary Miller, R-Ill.; Barry Moore, R-Ala.; Troy Nehls, R-Texas; Andy Ogles, R-Tenn.; Bill Posey, R-Fla.; Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.; Keith Self, R-Texas; Victoria Spartz, R-Ind.; Tom Tiffany, R-Wis.; and Randy Weber, R-Texas.
McCarthy said that he isn’t certain a deal on the nation’s debt ceiling will be made on Thursday, as negotiations between Republican and Democratic lawmakers continue.
“I don’t know if we’ll have a deal today,” McCarthy said when asked during an appearance on Fox News Channel about the progress of talks with President Joe Biden and the Democrats. “We worked well past midnight last night. We did make progress yesterday, but we still have a number of items that need to get through.”
“The most important thing here is to get an agreement worthy of the American public. Remember why we’re here,” the speaker said.
“We have the most money at any time, if you even take it to GDP [gross domestic product] coming into the government,” McCarthy said. “But we’re spending more than we’ve ever spent in history since the Democrats took the majority, and we have the most debt that we have ever had.”
Richard Stern, director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation, encouraged McCarthy to stand firm in the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)
“McCarthy is doing the right thing by championing the effort to work out a deal that would save our economy and prevent the government from stealing more from hardworking Americans,” Stern told The Daily Signal in an email Thursday morning. “Biden’s obsession with saving the woke and weaponized federal bureaucracy is a clear indicator of his willingness to throw the economy into chaos to further his ideological agenda.”
“The American people are counting on McCarthy and congressional conservatives to keep their resolve and stop the D.C. cartel,” Stern added.
The White House and McCarthy did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about the GOP members’ letter.
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