[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 1, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S180-S181]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               DEBT LIMIT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, later today, the Speaker of the House 
and the President will begin bipartisan discussions about the future 
and trajectory of our government's borrowing and spending.

[[Page S181]]

  It is right, appropriate, and entirely normal that our need to raise 
the debt limit would be paired with negotiations regarding Democrats' 
runaway printing and spending.
  The American people changed control of the House because the voters 
wanted to constrain Democrats' runaway, reckless, party-line spending. 
The voters of this country looked at the trillions of dollars of party-
line spending, the runaway inflation, and the mountain of debt, and 
last November they hit the brakes.
  We just experienced 2 years when Washington Democrats got to set 
policy without negotiating, and the American people put an end to it.
  Some Democrats are trying to rewrite history and pretend that 
Republican demands for negotiations are unusual, but that, of course, 
is just false.
  Back in 2017, the Senate Democratic leader said the debt ceiling gave 
Democrats ``leverage'' in broader talks. As the New York Times 
explained back in 2017, then-Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic leader 
``began formulating a plan to apply pressure, jettisoning the idea of 
backing a straightforward or `clean' debt limit measure . . . as a way 
to gain muscle in coming negotiations.'' That was the Pelosi-Schumer 
playbook for the debt limit: Demand negotiations.
  Here is how the Democratic leader put it himself at the time. He said 
the debt ceiling ``gives another ample opportunity for bipartisanship, 
not for one party jamming its choices down the throats of the other.''
  So I trust Democrats will be consistent with their past positions and 
the White House will waste no time beginning the customary bipartisan 
negotiations with the new Republican majority over in the House. The 
President of the United States does not get to walk away from the 
table.
  The same President who happily signed off on trillions of dollars of 
needless party-line spending needs to begin good-faith negotiations on 
spending reform with Speaker McCarthy and do it today.

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