Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) accused President Joe Biden of being “willing to tank the economy” instead of accepting spending clawbacks.
“His view is that he’s willing to tank the economy because he’s unwilling to give even a penny in the trillions in new spending that have caused the inflation that’s hurting Americans all across the country. It’s a blatantly unreasonable position,” Cruz told Fox News Sunday. “Yet he nonetheless smiles and just blames the other side.”
BIDEN TARGETS TAXES IN DEBT CEILING TALKS: ‘REVENUE IS NOT OFF THE TABLE’
Cruz’s remarks come after Biden’s comments at a Group of Seven press conference in Hiroshima, Japan, where the president postulated a default could be politically profitable for the GOP.
“There are some MAGA Republicans in the House who know the damage that [default] would do to the economy,” Biden said. “And because I am president, and a president is responsible for everything, Biden would take the blame, and that’s the one way to make sure Biden is not reelected.”
The Texas senator further blasted Biden for playing politics and accused him of lurching to the left on debt ceiling negotiations.
“He should be in Washington, D.C. He should be sitting down and working out a deal, working out a compromise the House of Representatives did its job weeks ago,” Cruz added. “Unfortunately, Joe Biden has handed his entire agenda over to the radical left — to the Bernie Sanders and the AOCs of the world.”
Biden boarded Air Force One for the return trip home to the United States, during which he spoke with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) over the phone to discuss the impasse. The two sides agreed to a meeting Monday to take another stab at hashing out an agreement.
“A responsible president would have stood up at that press conference and said, ‘Understand and hear me now, the United States of America will never ever, ever default on our debts,'” Cruz continued. “He can say that because every month revenue from federal taxes exceeds the interest on the debt, he could take default off the table.”
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Some experts have raised concerns about the viability of prioritization of government funding to avert a default in the event of the government passing the debt ceiling deadline, given the complexity of federal expenditures and receipts. Cruz argued Biden won’t commit to prioritizing the interest payments “because he wants to scaremonger.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen forecasted that the government has until June 1 before it begins to run out of cash to fulfill all of its obligations, raising the possibility of an economically calamitous default.
