Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Calling On Republicans Threatening A First-Ever Default To Show The American People Their Plan
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor to call on Republicans threatening a first-ever default on the debt to lay out their plan to cut vital programs. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
If the 118th Congress is going to do its job and raise the debt ceiling later this year, there is one very big, very important question that all of us need to answer: Republicans: where is your plan?
It is the first question that must be asked, so let me ask it again: Republicans, where is your plan?
For weeks, we’ve heard lots of howling at the moon from House Republicans on the MAGA fringe about sabotaging the credit of the United States, but little in the way of actual solutions. Republicans in the House, especially the MAGA ones, seem disturbingly at ease with taking our economy hostage in exchange for gutting vital programs, but when asked to explain to the American people what kind of cuts they want, suddenly these Republicans seem stumped.
This is reckless. Few issues require more bipartisanship, more cooperation, and more serious-mindedness than protecting the full faith and credit of the United States. We’ve never failed to pay our debts on time and the debt ceiling has consistently been a bipartisan endeavor. The radical MAGA crowd running the show in the House seems unable to grasp this truth.
So, let me try it again. House Republicans: where is your plan? You want to gut federal spending, so show us what that means. Show us what it means to the average American family, in specific detail. It is your responsibility on such a weighty issue to do just that.
Speaker McCarthy has an obligation—an obligation—to explain to the American people what Republicans actually plan to do about raising the debt ceiling.
Until we get a clear answer from House Republicans about what their plan is, there’s no point in speculating about anything else. Because if Republicans really want to starve the American people of vital services, the American people have a right to know what that will mean for their daily lives.
Otherwise, the American people will be left with only questions and no answers.
Republicans say they want cuts. Do Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare? Do Republicans want to cut military funding? Do they want to cut aid to veterans? Do they want to cut funding to police and firefighters and first responders? Do they want to cut education, public health, science research?
Saber-rattling about the debt, grandiose statements without any specifics, is not going to cut it. They've been doing that for a while. It doesn't work. Lay out the plan. Show us your plan. Republicans need to show us the math. They need to level with the American people. They need to show us their plan.
And now, here in the Senate, some members from the MAGA faction—particularly Senator Rick Scott—have taken it upon themselves to fill the void that House Republicans have created.
The bad news is that the plan they came up with is about as unhinged as they come.
Yesterday, the Junior Senator from Florida—the very same Senator who thought tax hikes on middle class families was a winning formula for Republicans last November—released a proposal that would put the interests of the Chinese Communist Party before the needs of American families.
Senator Scott calls it the Full Faith and Credit Act, but it is legislation that does not even deserve partial credit. Bond holders in Beijing would get their money while Floridians, Alabamans, Wisconsinites—and so many other American citizens—would be left out to dry.
Does he want to pay China before he pays school teachers? Does he want to pay the Chinese Communist Party before he pays our police officers?
There is no end to the negative impacts of this piece of legislation and it is no substitute to real action to avoid default. And worse yet, reports suggest that Speaker McCarthy has promised MAGA radicals in the House that he will hold a vote on a similar proposal to this one.
And who is going to pay the price? The American people.