Florida Democrats call out Republicans for debt-limit stance

Democrats within the Florida congressional delegation sought Monday to painting Republicans who management the U.S. House as reckless for their posturing on the approaching showdown about rising the federal debt restrict, warning it might produce an financial disaster.

And they wielded one thing that has confirmed to be a potent political weapon in Florida — residence to hundreds of thousands of seniors — the prospect of Republicans utilizing the debt ceiling problem to extract cuts in Social Security and Medicare spending.

“We can’t be holding our nation and our seniors hostage just to score some political points. And so I’m here in solidarity with our seniors and with our working families across the state of Florida and with our delegation to call the Republican Party out on their B.S.,” U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Orlando, stated in a video news convention.

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Frost, the primary Gen Z member of Congress, sounded the Social Security and Medicare alarm together with 4 of his Florida Democratic colleagues both on the video news convention or by means of a press launch.

“We have MAGA extremists who control the gavel in the House, and they’re threatening to take our entire global economy hostage unless we sacrifice Medicare and Social Security. And the knife they hold to the neck of our economy is the debt ceiling fight,” stated U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston.

“House Republicans are signaling that they will force a showdown with the White House over the nation’s debt ceiling, turning a debate over how much the federal government can borrow into an excuse to gut Social Security and Medicare,” she stated.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and his new majority within the House have stated they may push changes, equivalent to overhauls to entitlement applications, so as for Congress to boost the debt restrict.

Speaking Jan. 9 on the Fox Business Channel, U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, R-St. Augustine Beach, stated he was requested about priorities with regards to controlling federal spending.

“I’m all for a balanced budget. We’ve got to get spending under control, but we are not going to do it on the backs of our troops and our military. … We can work on reprioritizing defense spending but that’s really nibbling around the margins. If we really want to talk about the debt and spending it’s the entitlements program,” Waltz stated. Social Security and Medicare are the most important so-called entitlements.

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The Biden administration needs the borrowing cap elevated with none preconditions.

The problem echoes what occurred in summer time 2011, when a debt-ceiling standoff prompted the primary downgrade on a portion of the federal authorities’s AAA bond ranking by Standard & Poor’s.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., in an announcement Monday lamented the “federal debt crisis that Biden and Democrats are determined to ignore, sticking their heads in the sand while families bear the consequences.”

He stated it’s “time to reimagine government,” and known as for time period limits on members of Congress, giving the president a line-item veto authority on appropriations payments, and requiring two-thirds, as a substitute of a easy majority, of senators and representatives to create new taxes or charges.

Last yr, as head of the nationwide marketing campaign arm for Senate Republicans, Scott launched a marketing campaign platform that known as for a periodic sundown and assessment of all federal applications, together with Medicare and Social Security. That didn’t show common, and the Senate Republicans ended up shedding floor on election day.

Last week, former President Donald Trump warned Republicans concerning the political hazard of utilizing the debt ceiling problem to attempt to power cuts in entitlement applications, POLITICO reported. “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security,” Trump stated.

U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, criticized what she known as “the threat by the extreme MAGA Republicans.” U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Miramar, known as it “an emergency issue,” including that “Republicans want to play politics and hold that debt ceiling hostage.”

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A protracted combat, resulting in a default on U.S. debt and even the specter of default “means significant job loss and complete chaos for families,” Cherfilus-McCormick stated.

“The hypocrisy from House Republicans over the debt ceiling is beyond laughable. House Republicans put forward no preconditions when paying their American Express bills. The American people don’t get to dictate preconditions to Mastercard when their bill comes in the mail,” stated U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Parkland. ” You don’t have a choice when it comes to paying your bills.”

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Anthony Man will be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @browardpolitics and on Post.news/@browardpolitics.