Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
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WASHINGTON– U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Banking Committee, joined Joe Gumm on Trinity Broadcast Network’s “Centerpoint” to discuss U.S. economic outlook, debt ceiling negotiations, and fiscal responsibility. Excerpts and full video are below.
On Bipartisan Debt Ceiling Negotiations:
“I’m confident they’ll come to some sort of resolution. Nobody wants to default on the nation’s debt. We have too many priorities to get done. The President’s position of a clean debt ceiling [increase] with no conditions was impossible to sustain. […] Seven out of the last 10 debt ceiling increases have created some sort of concessions and additional policies attached to it. In a divided government, I just don’t see any other way to do it.”
“One thing about debt and spending and big legislating in this town is it almost always requires a deadline or a cliff to get action, and we’re coming close to the cliff.”
On House GOP Efforts to Curb Federal Spending:
“Kevin McCarthy and the House Republicans have passed a bill which raises the debt ceiling that has some rather modest — certainly reasonable — policy attachments, like work requirements for people on welfare, able bodied people on welfare. The vast majority of Americans, somewhere around three-fourths of Americans, support a policy like that.
“From 2019 to 2022, our baseline spending went from $4.4 trillion dollars to $6.2 trillion in that short timeframe. Would it be so bad to go back a couple of years as the new bottom line? The President’s asking for something like $6.8 trillion in growing debt and deficit with no end in sight.”
On ‘Catastrophic’ Economic Conditions, Outlook:
“We have high inflation. We have high interest rates. We have a lot of regulations that are driving businesses away. We have high taxation and an appetite for more on the Left. These things have already led to an economic crisis to the point where our GDP last quarter was 1.1%, which means we very well may be going into a recession.
“It’s not like we’ve avoided an economic crisis. One of the things driving up this crisis is our increasing debt and deficit spending. It’s entirely reasonable for Republicans to demand we do something on the spending side of this ledger. Markets and our economy will respond favorably to that.”