President Biden has been missing in action on the debt ceiling, refusing to start negotiations with Speaker McCarthy and putting our economy in jeopardy.
Now, even extreme House Democrats are demanding that Biden negotiates the debt ceiling with Speaker McCarthy.
MAKE NO MISTAKE: Debt ceiling negotiations are nothing new. Biden has a long history of engaging in and supporting them.
House Republicans are committed to a sensible debt ceiling solution that would limit Washington’s irresponsible spending, save taxpayer dollars, and grow the American economy.
JOE BIDEN AND HOUSE DEMOCRATS’ FAILED TAX AND SPEND POLICIES CAUSED THIS DEBT CRISIS:
Since President Biden took office in January 2021, he and House Democrats have increased the 10-year spending trajectory by $10 trillion
This includes ramming through their $2 TRILLION
so-called "American Rescue Plan" that ignited the highest spike in consumer prices in forty years, including:
$400 billion for policies that reduced private sector employment such as expanding unemployment insurance benefits that too often paid Americans to stay home rather than go to work and dismantling the Child Tax Credit by removing work requirements.
Billions lost to fraud due to Democrats’ rejection of Republican safeguards.
Billions in inflationary waste and abuse, including:
$783 million worth of checks to federal prisoners.
$1,400 stimulus checks sent to potentially as many as 70,000 Japanese citizens living in Japan.
$15 million to build a sports complex for the 2026 World Cup.
Reckless Washington spending has caused record inflation, rising interest rates, supply chain shortages, and instability in the banking system. Our plan would establish spending levels for FY24 at FY22 levels–where the government was operating just 4 short months ago–and allow for 1% annual growth over the next 10 years.
SAVINGS: Approximately $3.6 trillion
2) SAVE TAXPAYER DOLLARS:
Reclaim Unspent COVID Funds
Thanks to House Republicans, the pandemic is now officially over. If so-called “COVID” funding has sat dormant for over two years, clearly it no longer needs to be spent and should be rescinded without delay.
SAVINGS: Approximately $50-60 billion
Defund Biden’s IRS Army
As House Republicans did on Day 1 of our majority, we will fight for hard-working Americans by eliminating funding for the 87,000 new IRS agents charged with shaking down families and small businesses.
SAVINGS: Approximately $71 billion
Repeal “Green New Deal” Tax Credits
President Biden’s uncapped green energy tax credits and subsidies represent a massive corporate giveaway–including for wealthy Americans who can already afford expensive electric vehicles–that will distort the market and cause energy and utility prices to soar for everyday consumers.
SAVINGS: Approximately $271 billion - $1.2 trillion
Prohibit Biden’s Student Loan Giveaway to the Wealthy
President Biden’s egregious executive action would direct 70% of the benefit to those in the top half of the income spectrum–while forcing the 87% of adults without student loans to pay for the 13% who do.
SAVINGS: Approximately $465 billion
3) GROW THE ECONOMY
Strengthen the Workforce and Reduce Childhood Poverty
Right now, there are more job openings than people looking for work, in part because the Biden Administration has weakened some of the very work requirements that then-Senator Biden previously supported. By restoring these commonsense measures to assistance programs, we can help more Americans earn a paycheck, learn new skills, and reduce childhood poverty.
SAVINGS: Approximately $110-$120 billion
Prevent Executive Overreach and Restore Article 1
The REINS Act would help Congress block efforts by Presidents of both parties to spend money outside of the normal process and impose massive new costs on the American people, which President Biden has abused to the tune of $1.5 trillion in unilateral executive actions.
Lower Energy Costs and Utilities
House Republicans’ H.R. 1 would unleash reliable, cleaner American-made energy, tap our abundant natural resources, cut red tape for project permitting, reduce our dependence on China and foreign adversaries, and lower the cost of gas and utilities.
4) A RESPONSIBLE DEBT LIMIT INCREASE
In exchange for these pro-growth and cost-saving policies, the debt limit would be responsibly lifted through March 31, 2024 or by $1.5 trillion–whichever occurs sooner–and be transmitted to the ever-so-robust legislative agenda of the United States Senate.
Debt ceiling negotiations are nothing new. President Joe Biden, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer all have a long history of engaging in and supporting them. House Republicans are simply demanding that Biden come to the negotiating table, something that 70% of Americans agree with.
BIDEN’S HISTORY OF SUPPORTING DEBT CEILING NEGOTIATIONS:
2009: Biden led debt limit negotiations with House Blue Dog Democrats.
2011: Biden led debt limit negotiations with House Republicans.
Biden acknowledged you “have to have compromise” and criticized those with a “my way or the highway” approach.
2012: Biden said securing a deal with Republicans was a “great honor.”
2021: Biden hoped for “intelligent and honest conversation” with Republicans on a debt limit increase.
RECENT HISTORY OF DEBT CEILING NEGOTIATIONS
In 2017, President Trump and Democrats waived the debt limit for three months while providing disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey.
In 2018, “After months of closed-door negotiations, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and then-Minority Leader Chuck Schumer locked in a plan to raise spending caps, increase the debt limit and fund the government.”
In 2019, “After months of closed-door negotiations, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and then-Minority Leader Chuck Schumer locked in a plan to raise spending caps, increase the debt limit and fund the government.”
In 2019, "Pelosi, the California Democrat, said the idea of raising the debt ceiling on its own and not in conjunction with a budget agreement was not 'acceptable to our caucus' and therefore did not stand a chance of passage in the House of Representatives."
A DEEPER DIVE INTO THE LIMIT, SAVE, GROW ACT OF 2023
FAST FACTS ON THE SPENDING CAPS IN THE LIMIT, SAVE, GROW ACT OF 2023:
Limit Washington spending.
Return federal spending to 2022 levels.
Limit increases to 1% annually.
Save $3.6 trillion over 10 years.
STRENGTHENING THE WORKFORCE AND ENDING CHILDHOOD POVERTY:
There is a workforce crisis in America that is fueling inflation, with nearly 10 million open jobs nationwide.
Due to work requirements, 60 percent who have left welfare are working, employment rates among single mothers have increased dramatically, and child poverty has declined.
Work requirements help preserve taxpayer-funded resources for the truly needy.
These policies have led to millions of able-bodied adults getting off welfare and going back to work.
Work requirements are the most effective tools in lifting individuals out of dependency and into self-sufficiency, and improving lives.
Work helps end the cycle of dependency for children growing up in families on welfare.
This provision would add new workers to the workforce who would pay payroll taxes that support Social Security and Medicare, preserving those programs for future generations.
Work requirements will only apply to able-bodied adults without dependents.
In states with work requirements, adults had their incomes more than double after leaving welfare.
In Wisconsin’s most recent election on April 4, 2023, nearly 80% of voters voted “yes” on the following ballot measure: “Shall able-bodied, childless adults be required to look for work in order to receive taxpayer-funded welfare benefits?”
FAST FACTS ABOUT BIDEN’S GREEN NEW DEAL TAX CREDITS:
The price tag for the Biden Administration’s so-called “green” energy future to electrify our nation continues to get more expensive. Taxpayers stand to pay more than 3 times the initial cost estimate for “climate change” provisions in the falsely titled Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” enacted by Democrats last year gave $271 billion in tax credits to pay for “green” energy projects favored by the Democrat donor class.
Since the preliminary JCT estimate, independent analysis keeps raising the price tag, with one recent estimate putting the “green” subsidy handouts at $1.2 trillion.
The forecast misses include electric vehicles (difference: $379 billion), green energy manufacturing ($156 billion), renewable electricity production ($82 billion), energy efficiency ($42 billion), hydrogen ($36 billion), biofuels ($34 billion) and carbon capture ($31 billion).
Recent independent analysis estimates that the cost of the electric vehicle (EV) battery production tax credit alone could cost upwards of $196.5 billion, 540% more than the initial JCT estimate of $30.6 billion.
Companies with over $1 billion in sales receive more than 90 percent of special interest green energy tax subsidies.
Banks and insurers alone receive over half of green energy checks, far more than any other industry or sector.
In short, Democrats have created an enormous new corporate entitlement whose costs, if not repealed, will increase on autopilot and blow up the deficit while raising energy prices for average Americans.
BIDEN'S 'GREEN ENERGY ECONOMY' IS BENEFITING FAR LEFT BILLIONAIRES:
Biden's taxpayer-funded push to build a "clean energy economy" is benefiting the left's most prominent billionaire megadonors, including Bill Gates and Laurene Powell Jobs, a Washington Free Beacon analysis found:
In the last two months Biden's Energy Department has announced nearly $3 billion in loans to two electric battery companies, Redwood Materials and Ioneer, which are backed by seed funding from Gates, Jobs, and other left-wing billionaires.
Biden's green energy grants are going to groups funded by the same people who poured money into dark money groups that helped get Biden elected.
In July 2021, Redwood raised $700 million from a "carefully selected group of strategic investors," including Gates and Powell Jobs, who participated in the fundraising round through their investment firms.
In 2020, Gates sent $127 million to a liberal dark money network working to elect Democrats, while Powell Jobs gave left-wing candidates and political groups more than $2 million.
This is far from the first time Biden's efforts to advance green energy have benefited his donors. The Democrat last year awarded thousands of acres of public land to a solar energy company whose top executive helped him raise millions of dollars.
