Source: United States Senator for Pennsylvania Pat Toomey
Washington, D.C.—In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) joined CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning to discuss the debt ceiling. During the interview, Senator Toomey explained that if Democrats insist on making our debt problem worse, they should and can raise the debt ceiling by themselves.
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On the Democrats’ ability to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally:
“It is true that the more you spend, the more you have to borrow. [Democrats] want to go on a very dangerous, unprecedented, irresponsible spending spree. It will require tremendous borrowing. I don’t want to be a part of that. It’s going to be really bad for America.
“[Democrats] don’t need us. They’ve got the votes. Chuck Schumer can do it this afternoon if he wanted to without a single Republican. It is not subject to a filibuster.
“We could not stop it if we wanted to. So, it’s a little rich for them to be setting their hair on fire—talking about how disastrous it’s going to be—when at any moment they could completely prevent it.”
On Democrats’ $3.5 trillion tax and spending:
“We have a spending problem in America—the federal government does, that is. Our Democratic colleagues are determined to make that much, much worse.”
“[Democrats] are about to launch all kinds of new entitlement programs for the middle class to the tune of trillions of dollars. So, if they really want to go in that direction, they can provide the votes to raise the debt ceiling that will provide the borrowing that they’re going to drive.”
“It’s meant to make the middle class more dependent on government . . . The Democrats want to socialize this. This is a transformation of American society and the traditional relationship between the American people and government. This isn’t about how do you deal with people who are in abject poverty, how do you deal with people who are temporarily just unable to work. It has nothing to do with that. It’s about prosperous middle class Americans becoming dependent on government and separating the link between government checks and any kind of responsibility to work. This is a very bad idea. I wouldn’t be for it if the money were free. The money is not free. This is a disaster.”