Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) backed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s support for ”substantive” budget cuts days before he is set to meet with President Joe Biden and other congressional leaders to negotiate on debt ceiling legislation.
The Hill reported that McConnell signed onto a letter sent to Democrat Senate Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), that calls for “structural budget reform” in debt ceiling negotiations and opposes Democrats’ proposal for a “clean” bill that only raises the debt ceiling.
The letter is McConnell’s clearest statement about where he stands amid the debt ceiling negotiations, as The Hill noted.
The letter reads:
The Senate Republican conference is united behind the House Republican conference in support of spending cuts and structural budget reform as a starting point for negotiations on the debt ceiling.
As such, we will not be voting for cloture on any bill that raises the debt ceiling without substantive spending and budget reforms.
More than 40 Senate Republicans signed onto this letter, signaling they have the votes to sustain a filibuster against any Democrat efforts to pass a “clean” debt ceiling bill, if necessary.
Days after House Republicans passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, Biden caved and invited Congressional leaders to sit down with him to negotiate on May 9, after months of refusing to do so.
McConnell urged Biden to reach a deal with McCarthy when he told reporters he accepted Biden’s invitations earlier in the week.
“In this situation, and I’ve been through a few of these debt-ceiling dramas, there is no solution in the Senate. We have a divided government. The American people gave the Republicans the House, the Democrats have the presidency,” McConnell said. “The president and the Speaker need to reach an agreement to get us past this impasse.”
“That’s my message going down to the White House meeting. It will be my message in the White House meeting, and I think that’s clearly the way we get to a solution,” McConnell added.
