Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized his House counterpart Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), for the lack of a plan to address the debt ceiling crisis.
Schumer reiterated the Democrats’ long-standing position that lifting the debt limit should come in a “clean bill” and criticized Republicans for not providing specifics in their demands for spending cuts.
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“Where is your plan, Mr. McCarthy? He says he wants cuts. We ask him which ones. He won’t say any,” Schumer said on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “Is it Social Security and Medicare? That would hurt the American people.”
Republicans such as McCarthy and others have publicly ruled out cuts to Medicare and Social Security, but Schumer stressed that “a lot of other people in his caucus” still say the programs will be met with cuts. He further pondered whether cuts will come to the police, the military, or other crucial programs.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recently accused Schumer of hypocrisy for how Democrats leaned on the debt limit for leverage in negotiations with the Trump administration.
“We’re totally consistent. First, the bottom line is that we never did what McCarthy is doing. Brinkmanship, holding hostage, saying, I won’t do the debt ceiling,” Schumer shot back in response. “Four times Democrats, even when Trump was in power, even two times when Trump and the Republicans had the House and Senate.”
On Jan. 19, the U.S. hit its statutory limit on its borrowing authority. In response, the Treasury Department began undertaking “extraordinary” measures to pay the nation’s current obligations while Congress scrambles to find a solution.
The current budgeting arrangements passed by Congress include about a trillion dollars in deficit spending. After June 5, the government will be forced to stop making payments to key programs if the debt limit is not raised, the Treasury Department estimates. McCarthy has met with President Joe Biden on the debt limit issue.
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Schumer also weighed in on the Chinese spy balloon uproar, contending that Beijing was “humiliated” by the episode. He also noted that senators are working to unravel why it took so long for the military to discover the balloons.
“I think the Chinese were humiliated. I think the Chinese were caught lying. And I think it’s a real — it’s a real step back for them, yes,” Schumer said. “They look really bad. And they’re not just doing the United States. This is a crew of balloons; we saw one in South America, they’ve probably been all over the world.”
