[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 140 (Thursday, August 5, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S5893]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               DEBT LIMIT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, in just a few days our colleagues will 
start ramming through yet another--another--reckless taxing-and-
spending spree: trillions more in inflationary spending when families 
just want good jobs and stable prices.
  But there is something funny happening. Even as Democrats crow about 
how all this spending is so good and so needed, they are petrified to 
vote for the credit limit increase that would make it possible.
  The Democrats are about to tell Republicans to go take a hike and 
start teeing up trillions more dollars in borrowing and spending, of 
course, without a single Republican vote. Ah, but at the same time, 
they are extolling the virtues of their latest socialist shopping list, 
they are afraid to up the limit on their credit card. They want 
Republicans to give them political cover for the partisan debt bomb 
that they will go right on to detonate with zero input from us. My 
colleagues are so mixed up on this, it is almost comical.
  The sums that we borrowed and spent through 2020--through last year, 
through the last administration, through the actual economic 
emergency--were largely covered by the previous debt suspension that 
just expired, but Democrats want a new debt limit increase for the new 
borrowing and the new spending that they willfully piled up since they 
took power: about $2 trillion back in March, trillions more sometime 
soon.
  So they want to unleash another reckless taxing-and-spending spree 
with zero Republican input--oh, oh--but when the bill comes, they say 
it is time to split the check. When the bill comes, it is time to split 
the check. Initiating another budget reconciliation process in a 50-50 
Senate is as willfully partisan, as ``go it alone'' as it gets, 
especially in a Senate that keeps proving we can do bipartisan work.
  So, look, if our colleagues want to ram through yet another reckless 
taxing-and-spending spree without our input, if they want all this 
spending and debt to be their signature legacy, they should leap at the 
chance to own every bit of it.
  So let me make something perfectly clear: If they don't need or want 
our input, they won't get our help. They won't get our help with the 
debt limit increase that these reckless plans will require. I could not 
be more clear. They have the ability. They control the White House; 
they control the House; they control the Senate. They can raise the 
debt ceiling, and if it is raised, they will do it

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