Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor regarding Senate Democrats’ plan to permanently extend the debt ceiling:
“Politicians regularly come to Washington promising fiscal responsibility. But too often, they can’t agree to cut spending when it counts.
“That’s why the Budget Control Act is such a big deal. Since Congress passed the BCA with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in 2011, Washington has actually reduced the level of government spending for two years running. That’s the first time this has happened since the Korean War.
“The BCA savings are such a big deal, in fact, that the President campaigned on it endlessly in 2012. He bragged about the bipartisan cuts in Colorado and Iowa. He trumpeted the reductions from coast to coast, telling audiences from California to Baltimore that he, quote, ‘signed $2 trillion of spending cuts into law.’
“As our Democrat friends like to say these days, elections matter. And the President explicitly staked his re-election on the back of these bipartisan cuts.
“I mean, just look at the exit polls from November. A majority of Americans said that government was doing too much. About two-thirds said raising taxes to cut the deficit was a non-starter. And compared to Obamacare, which more voters actually said they wanted to repeal, these levels of support are striking.
“So if our friends on the other side want to keep trying to claim an electoral mandate for retaining Obamacare – contradicted by the facts as they might be – well, using their own logic, we’d then have to call the mandate for reducing the size of government a ‘super mandate.’
“That’s why their new plan to undo the cuts the President campaigned on and increase the debt is so outrageous.
“We hear that the Senior Senator from New York will soon announce a proposal to give the President permanent power to borrow more.
“In other words, he wants to extend the debt ceiling permanently by going around Congress. Let me repeat that: the so-called ‘Schumer-Obama Plan’ is a plan to permanently hand the President a credit card without spending limits, and without lifting a finger to address the national debt.
“It’s outrageous.
“Especially when you consider that our debt is now about $17 trillion, which makes us look a lot like a European country. We have to get our debt under control before we move any further down the road to Greece and Spain. And time is not on our side.
“Now, I hear that the Senator from New York is going to try and sell his proposal as a quote-unquote ‘McConnell Plan.’ I appreciate the attempt at a PR gimmick here, but there are two huge differences between the ‘Schumer-Obama Plan’ and what I’ve proposed in the past.
“First, ‘Schumer-Obama’ would raise the debt ceiling permanently. I reject that idea entirely.
“And second, unlike ‘Schumer-Obama,’ I believe that increases in the debt ceiling should be accompanied by reforms. That’s just what we did in 2011, when Congress raised the debt ceiling in return for enacting $2 trillion in bipartisan spending control – the spending control the President campaigned on endlessly.
“That’s the real ‘McConnell Plan.’ And if the Senator from New York is interested in working with me to enact another $2 trillion in bipartisan cuts, then let’s get down to brass tacks. The American people would love to see us working in a bipartisan way to help them.
“But if he insists on pushing this ‘Schumer-Obama Plan,’ he’s not going to find any dance partners on this side of the aisle.
“Because handing the President a permanent blank check, increasing the size of government, and trying to overturn the most significant bipartisan accomplishment of the Obama years – well, that’s just a non-starter.
“Our debt is a serious problem. I know Kentuckians think so. Like Americans all across the country, they understand it’s completely unsustainable over the long run – and they understand it’s standing in the way of jobs and economic growth today.
“So let’s shelve the gimmicks and the blank checks and get to work on more bipartisan plans to get spending under control.
“That’s what our constituents expect.”