Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) said Sunday that it is up to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to pass a debt limit increase, given that the House has already done so, and push President Joe Biden to accept a deal.
House Republicans passed a debt limit increase three weeks ago — against the expectations of Democrats and the media — that were conditional on modest federal spending cuts back to 2022 levels over several years.
Biden rejected the Republican proposal as “extreme” and has refused to negotiate on the debt limit — though he has accepted negotiations on spending, which the White House insists are separate from debt limit talks.
Tenney, speaking to Breitbart News Sunday, said that given the June 1 deadline, which Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen has said will be the point at which the U.S. can no longer pay all of its debts, it is necessary for Democrats to do their part.
“I think the bill that we put in, as Republicans, that we passed — and by the way, [we’re] the only ones who passed anything, as you know — I really think that our bill was really a good bill, and it’s been lauded by a lot of people. The “Limit, Save, Grow Act” has brought us back to 2022 levels … over ten years, so it’s modest.”
She added: “And so it’s really up to the Senate and Chuck Schumer to pass something, and then to put it on Biden’s desk. … They need to come to the table.”
She added that work requirements for welfare, which Republicans have included in their proposals, are “very popular,” given perceptions that able people are staying out of the workforce.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
