Speaker McCarthy: Willing to Work With Biden on Debt Crisis

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday he's willing to wait to work on determining what to do about the nation's debt crisis, including on questions concerning whether to raise the debt ceiling and that he believes that Congress can work with anybody who wants to work together on the situation, including President Joe Biden.

But, the California Republican warned on Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo" that the government must "change our behavior for the good of America" when it comes to spending, "because what we're going to do is bankrupt this country and these entitlements if we don't change our behavior today."

McCarthy, though, rejected speculation that the White House wouldn't agree to a spending cap to bring the national budget under control.

"I don't believe that's the case, because when Donald Trump was president and Nancy Pelosi was speaker, that's exactly what happened for them to get a debt ceiling lifted last time," McCarthy said. "They agreed to a spending cap. I believe we can sit down with anybody who wants to work together. I believe this president could be that person. That's the conversation I had with the president. I want to sit down with him now so there is no problem."

Biden, he added, "knows there are places that you can change and put America on a trajectory that we save these entitlements, instead of putting them into bankruptcy."

Still, he told Bartiromo that there are "plenty of places where we can find efficiencies and eliminate waste.

"The idea that a $1.7 trillion omnibus bill was written by two senators who were retiring where nobody got to debate it, I know we could find a lot of places we can eliminate," he said.

"I know that when [Republicans] were in power, discretionary spending went up zero," said McCarthy. "Like every single household, the first thing you need to do is a budget and prioritize where your money should be spent. Defense is the very number one priority."

McCarthy further pointed out that as the nation won't hit its debt limit until summer, it's "worth a moment to pause" and examine what has happened.

"If you look at the last four years that Democrats were in the majority, they increased discretionary spending by 30%," he said. "When Republicans were in the majority for the eight years prior, they didn't increase it by one dollar, so that's $400 billion a year we spend more. In the last two years, they have taken us from spending $4 trillion to $7 trillion. They have added $10 trillion in the next 10 years. We are now going to have deficits of a trillion dollars a year for as long as the eye can see."

But that doesn't mean the debt ceiling should be raised to keep such spending patterns going, said McCarthy.

"What I really think we need to do is treat this like we would treat our household," he said. "If you have a child and you gave them a credit card and they kept hitting the limit, you wouldn't keep increasing it."

But, for the White House to say it "won't even look" for ways to cut back, "I think they're trying to put us into bankruptcy," said McCarthy.

"What I'm saying, the first conversation I had with the president, let's sit down together, let's look at the places that we can change," said McCarthy. "The first thing is our behavior. The first thing is, why don't you make the House and Senate first produce a budget? They don't produce a budget, so you know they're wasting money."

The House and Senate also have to both do appropriation bills, he said.

"The Senate didn't even do appropriation bills, and two senators wrote a $1.7 trillion bill right before Christmas," McCarthy said. "Are you going to tell me there's no waste in that?"

Meanwhile, even if spending goes back to the levels in 2022, as has been called for, that will not bring a $75 billion cut in defense spending, as Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., warned in a recent Fox News interview, said McCarthy.

But, he said there are ways to cut defense spending.

"Eliminate all the money spent on wokism, eliminate all the money that they're trying to find different fuels," he said. "I want our men and women trained to be able to defend themselves, to secure, to have the best weapons systems possible. So, yeah, I'm sure they can find some places where they could be more efficient."

McCarthy said he is often told by members of the military about the waste in the Pentagon, and they want to be more efficient.

"But every single level of government should be doing that," he said. "This is not our money. This is the hard-working taxpayers' money. We should start every day with how can we be more efficient, how can we deliver more effectively to the American public, and how can we do it in a more secure way so that we don't spend as much."

It's "arrogant" to say there is no waste in government, the congressman added.

"Why wouldn't we look at all the money that poured out during COVID?" he said. "What money of that has not been spent? Why wouldn't you pull that back in?"