[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 92 (Tuesday, May 30, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S1778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Debt Ceiling

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 4 months ago, Speaker McCarthy invited 
President Biden to start negotiating an agreement to preserve the full 
faith and credit of the United States and to begin to get our Nation's 
financial house in order.
  The Speaker stood ready to discuss a responsible way forward, but for 
weeks on end, the Biden administration and the Senate Democratic leader 
insisted that there would be no discussion of reasonable reforms to 
Federal spending. Washington Democrats wanted a green light to spend 
more taxpayer dollars with no strings attached. Well, the people's 
House had other plans.
  Speaker McCarthy and his team committed to what I said repeatedly was 
the only way to get an outcome. Just as with 7 of the last 10 debt 
limit agreements in recent history, House Republicans focused on 
reaching a bipartisan agreement to put reasonable caps on Federal 
spending.
  The Speaker's deal secures reductions in discretionary spending. But 
this top-line achievement is actually just part of the story. House 
Republicans also succeeded in clawing back $28 billion in unspent COVID 
emergency funds, they eliminated this year's budget for hiring new IRS 
agents, and they expanded work requirements to put more Americans on 
sustainable paths out of poverty. They put an important down payment on 
permitting reform by imposing a shot clock on the costly bureaucratic 
reviews that hamstrings infrastructure projects. And they forced the 
executive branch to start balancing the cost of new regulations with 
corresponding cuts--a move that would have saved taxpayers $1.5 
trillion in just the past 2 years.
  Last fall, the American people elected a divided government. After 2 
years of total Democratic control--2 years of radical spending and 
runaway inflation--they decided to send a Republican majority to the 
people's House. They decided to require that President Biden and 
Washington Democrats start working with Republicans on the biggest 
issues facing our country.
  Now divided government means negotiated deals. It means nobody gets 
everything they want. But in this case, it means the American people 
got a whole lot more progress toward fiscal sanity than Washington 
Democrats wanted to give them.
  Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans deserve our thanks. This 
spring, they passed the only viable legislation that both preserved our 
Nation's full faith and credit and made real progress toward getting 
Federal spending under control.
  House Republicans' unity forced President Biden to do his job. It is 
really just that simple. And now Congress will vote on legislation that 
locks in that important progress.
  Republicans have a tremendous opportunity to take on an existential 
challenge facing our economy and future generations of Americans. We 
have a chance to start bringing Washington Democrats' reckless spending 
to heel. Soon it will be the Senate's turn to put this historic 
agreement on the President's desk. Let's not pass up our shot.