Speaking before the chamber Monday, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell urged Democrats to take ownership over their exorbitant “socialist shopping list” and finance it without Republican votes. He said the GOP will either refuse to fund the next massive Democratic expenditure or be complicit in burdening future generations by voting to raise the debt ceiling.
His statement comes after Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer revealed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution Monday including provisions for health care, child care, climate change, immigration, and other Democratic legislative priorities.
“So tragedy and comedy are two sides of the same coin,” he noted. McConnell said the tragedy is that the Democrats’ spending spree will cripple middle-class families. Meanwhile, the comedy is that Democrats are masquerading under bipartisanship when in reality “they won’t let Republicans have any say in this monstrosity . . . but they want our help raising their credit card to make it happen,” the GOP leader said.
McConnell accused the Democrats in Congress of trying to “tax and spend our country into oblivion” by “handing the keys” to progressive senator Bernie Sanders and socialist members of the “squad.” Mentioning the compounded inflationary effects of all the bills passed in the past year, McConnell cited the expert estimate that the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion prescription will cost Americans $5.5 trillion.
Republicans are already on track to grant Biden a major legislative victory with the nearly $1 trillion pending infrastructure package, which is expected to pave the road for the accompanying Democratic social agenda — with almost three times the price tag. McConnell was among the 19 Republicans who voted to advance the former bill.
Warning of the damage that the Democrats’ policies will inflict, McConnell referenced the unemployment-insurance expansions exacerbating labor shortages, the amnesty push amid a southern border crisis, and the Green New Deal’s harm to industries that are struggling to recover from recession.
“It’s our Democratic colleagues who have no interest in what is historically normal. Their borrowing and spending is historically abnormal,” he added.
McConnell confirmed that the GOP will not participate in a vote to raise the debt limit, clarifying that the Democrats can advance a radical measure through the back-door reconciliation avenue without Republican support anyway.
“Democrats have all the existing tools they need to raise the debt limit on a partisan basis. If they want 50 lockstep Democratic votes to spend trillions and trillions more, they can find 50 Democratic votes to finance it. If they don’t want Republicans’ input, they don’t need our help,” he said.
“So shouldn’t Democrats be proud to own all the debt it requires? Our colleagues seem confident that Chairman Sanders’s vision is worth sticking our kids and grandkids with a massive bill. They deserve to have total ownership of that decision,” McConnell concluded.
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