Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement Wednesday regarding the President’s invitation for a bipartisan, bicameral meeting at the White House on Thursday to discuss the President’s request to raise the debt ceiling:

“Yesterday I accepted the President's invitation to the White House to discuss what the two parties can do together to reduce our nation's out-of-control deficit and debt, to create jobs and to put the American economy back on solid footing.

“I have said for many months that the upcoming vote on the debt limit should be viewed as an opportunity to do something big that would send a clear message to the American people and the world that we could come together and put our fiscal house in order.

“It’s notable that the President, who not that long ago preferred that we raise the debt ceiling without any corresponding plan to do these things, now wants to discuss the need to do something about our crushing debt burden.

“Thursday's meeting will give us the chance to see if the President means what he says.

“It's an opportunity to see if the President is finally willing to agree on a serious plan to pay our bills without killing jobs in the process.

“Until now, the President's proposals have been inadequate and, frankly, indefensible.

“It's ludicrous for the administration to propose raising hundreds of billions in taxes at a time when 14 million Americans are looking for work and job creators are struggling.

“Just this last December the President acknowledged that preventing a tax hike meant more resources were available for job creators to add employees. Does the President now think the economy is doing so well, that unemployment is so low and economic growth so rapid that we can take billions of dollars away from these very same job creators?

“It's equally ludicrous to propose more stimulus spending as part of a deficit reduction package.

“Republicans and, yes, some Democrats oppose those ideas because they won’t solve the debt crisis and they won’t create jobs.

“Americans expect that in a negotiation about a debt crisis that we actually do something to significantly reduce the debt. And with so many still out of work, we expect the President to not insist on proposals that his own administration says will put even more on the unemployment line.

“So we're eager to meet with the President to see if he's really willing to do something big here for the country.

“We don't think it's absolutist to oppose more stimulus spending.

“We don't think it's maximalist to oppose hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes in the middle of a jobs crisis.

“We'd have a better term for it: common sense.

“So we're ready to meet with the President on Thursday. Maybe he will have changed his mind and returned to his common sense approach in December when he said that preventing tax hikes means `freeing up other money to hire new workers.’

“Hopefully we can finally do something big to reduce the deficit, put people back to work, and prevent Medicare’s bankruptcy.

“That should be the goal.”