President Joe Biden heartily attacked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the “MAGA economic vision for America” during a speech delivered Wednesday in Maryland.
The White House billed Biden’s speech, delivered at the Union of Operating Engineers Local 77 Training Center, as a frontal assault on Republican spending and debt ceiling proposals, which officials claimed “overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations.”
BIDEN HITS MCCARTHY ON DEBT CEILING: ‘SHOW ME HIS BUDGET’
“You and the American people should know about the competing economic visions of the country that are really at stake right now,” Biden said at the top of his remarks. “Just two days ago, the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, went to Wall Street to drive home the MAGA economic vision for America.”
The president claimed that McCarthy and “extreme MAGA House Republicans” were threatening to cut federal spending by 22%, including reducing funding for veterans’ healthcare, child care, and opioid treatment programs. He additionally claimed that the GOP is seeking to cut food aid for low-income Americans and undoing the work the Biden administration has done to bring back manufacturing jobs from overseas.
The tension surrounding the debt limit has skyrocketed in recent weeks despite Biden and McCarthy both optimistically speaking about reaching a compromise earlier this spring. The White House has repeatedly accused McCarthy of stalling to produce a viable counteroffer to the president’s budget request, putting the full faith and credit of the country at stake in the process.
McCarthy, in turn, announced a bill earlier on Wednesday to raise the debt ceiling temporarily by $1.5 trillion or through March 2024, whichever occurs first. McCarthy, in a speech on Wall Street on Tuesday, also reiterated his commitment to reducing the federal deficit and, as others in his party have called for, repealing Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
“Do you think he told the wealthy and powerful it’s about time to pay your fair share? Do you think he told the companies to stop stashing profits in tax havens off the coast and shipping jobs overseas?” Biden said Wednesday of McCarthy’s remarks. “Instead, he proposed huge cuts to very important programs that millions of hardworking, middle-class Americans count on.”
“Do these physical cuts actually help the deficit, to actually reduce cost? Well, the honest answer is no,” the president continued.
“That’s the MAGA economic agenda. Spending cuts for working- and middle-class folks,” he concluded. “It’s about finding ways to squeeze more Americans in the middle class.
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You can watch Biden’s remarks in full below.
