U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told Newsmax on Friday that White House accusations of Republicans using the national debt ceiling as a political football are "disingenuous."
During a press briefing Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the debt ceiling, which at $31.4 trillion was reached Thursday, should not be held hostage "because MAGA Republicans in the House want to cut Social Security or they want to cut Medicare. That should not be where we are right now. We should not be moving forward on the debt ceiling in that way."
Biggs told "American Agenda" that what Jean-Pierre said is not true.
In negotiating a way to raise the debt ceiling to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its loans, House Republicans are trying to reduce spending across the federal budget and are not just targeting Social Security and Medicare.
Jean-Pierre said Jan. 13 the Biden administration wants the debt ceiling raised "without conditions."
"I thought how disingenuous was she because, basically, this president said he's not going to negotiate on anything. And then she says, 'Well, people have said they're going to cut Social Security and Medicare.' That is flat-out untrue.
"What people have talked about is, there are other ways to try to reduce the spending instead of just raising the debt ceiling all the time."
Biggs said the debt ceiling might just be raised, but in the interim, it can't hurt for Congress to find ways to reduce wasteful spending.
"Let's reform spending so if you have waste in your programs, whether it's discretionary programs or other, how about reducing that? How about finding where you have pockets of money that haven't been spent and rescinding those and bringing them back in, so you don't always have to raise the debt?"
According to the Treasury Department, since 1960, Congress has acted 78 times to permanently raise, temporarily extend, or revise the definition of the debt limit. In March 2015, the debit ceiling was adjusted to $18.1 trillion. In nearly eight years, it has risen 30%. Biggs said in four years, it is estimated to grow to $37 trillion.
"They [the White House] don't want to do anything about it," Biggs said. "They just want a clean bill and just say, Let's just keep raising the debt ceiling. But that's not what anybody on the Republican side is about. We want to bring budget-balancing notions back in there and that starts with finding waste and abuse and dealing with that.
"That's the negotiation that they don't want to engage in. Instead, they want to demagogue. That's the way they always are."
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