Democrats on Capitol Hill criticized Republican legislation aimed at reducing the nation's $32 trillion debt, with some blaming former President Trump for the country's massive bills.
"It’s a horrible, horrible bill," Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts told Fox News. "It is cruel, it is mean, and this whole game that they are playing with paying our nation’s bills represents an all-time high in recklessness and stupidity."
"This is not a conversation, this is a ransom note," he added.
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House Republicans, in a 217-215 vote, passed a bill to slash spending and raise the debt limit in an effort to curb a looming debt crisis.
The Limit, Save, Grow, Act raises will save taxpayers $4.8 trillion over a 10-year period, according to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He said it will claw back unspent COVID-19 money, add work requirements for certain handouts and help the supply chain. The bill is in stark opposition to President Biden’s hope to have a clean increase to the debt ceiling.
Rep. Jimmy Panetta of California called the bill "not serious."
"It’s not going to get anywhere," he said. "I hope to be able to get to a point where all of us can come to the table and make sure all options are on the table."
Rep. Ro Khanna said that we "can’t hold the country hostage on the issue of whether we pay our credit card bill."
"In America, we pay our bills," he added. "It’s the patriotic thing to do."
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Rep. Jason Crow stressed the importance of avoiding default.
"I’ve been worried all along by the threat of a default, it would be devastating for our economy, it would lead to tens of thousands of Americans losing their jobs and it would cost us billions of dollars," the Colorado Democrat said. "So that should not be an option."
Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin said the Republican bill doesn’t have a chance.
"All we’ve really seen from Republicans are bills that are going nowhere," he said. "I’ll be happy through the appropriations process to have those conversations."
Several Democrats pointed to spending during the Trump presidency.
"They had no problem increasing the national debt when Donald Trump was president to pay for the trillions of dollars that his tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires added onto the debt," McGovern said.
Khanna told Fox News that Democrats know how to bring down the deficit.
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"The last president who had a balanced budget was a democrat, Bill Clinton, and then we had the Trump tax cuts, the Bush tax cuts," he said, adding that "these overseas wars, that’s what ballooned the deficit."
Khanna also said the Democrats' plan to avoiding growing the debt is to "get out of a lot of these overseas wars" and to "have people who are very wealthy to pay the same tax as firefighters and teachers on their social security."
Click here to hear more about what Democrats think about the national debt and debt ceiling.
