Schumer: Debt Bill ‘Beat Back the Worst of the Republican Agenda’
Democratic Majority Leader claims victory after debt-limit increase clears Senate
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer crowed about how the agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling actually will spare the nation from “the worst of the Republican agenda,” after the Senate approved the deal and sent it to President Biden to sign into law.
Senators passed the debt ceiling bill Thursday night on a 63-36 vote, with Biden intending to sign into law the legislation which codifies the long, contentious negotiation he engaged in with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in order to win an increase in the federal government's debt limit.
The legislation will raise the debt ceiling to allow the government to continue to pay its bills, while enacting some of the spending cuts McCarthy and other House Republicans insisted on in order to agree to that debt-limit increase.
Without a debt-ceiling increase, the government soon would have run out of ways to pay its bills, causing a default and triggering a wider economic meltdown.
Although Democrats had been wary of taking a victory lap before final passage of the debt-ceiling bill for fear they would enrage Republicans and imperil the legislation's approval, once it got by the Senate Schumer no longer felt any reluctance to crow about the Democrats’ success in setting the terms of the deal.
“An overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats voted for the bill. A majority of Republicans voted against it. And it’s not just how Democrats carried the bill to the finish line, but why,” the New York Democrat said. “Why did we get more votes? We got more votes because the bill beat back the worst of the Republican agenda. This was an exercise in where the American people were at, and they are much closer to where we are than where they are.
“Of course, nobody got everything they wanted. There was give on both sides. But this agreement was a very good outcome because it accomplished three extremely important goals,” Schumer added. “First and foremost, we prevented a catastrophic default that would have decimated our economy, raised cost, and inflicted immense unnecessary pain on tens and tens and tens of millions of American families.
“Second, the bill preserves the lion’s share of the historic investments we have made to grow our economy, fix our infrastructure, make the U.S. more competitive on the world stage — which the Republican caucus in the House seemed intent on tearing down. They didn’t get to do that,” he said. “And third, and very importantly, we did a very good job of taking the worst parts of the Republican plan that would have hurt so many families and we took those worst parts off the table. Let me say it again: Tonight’s vote is a good outcome because Democrats did a very good job taking the worst parts of the Republican plan off the table.”
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