On Wednesday Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden shared his thoughts regarding President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling deal on his Substack, “Dear Mainer.”
[RELATED: Biden-McCarthy Debt Ceiling Deal Heads to Congress for Approval]
In a previous newsletter released in April, Rep. Golden called on President Biden to be the “bipartisan dealmaker” he promised to be during his 2020 campaign, and to sit down with Speaker McCarthy to negotiate a deal that would “deliver a responsible budget.”
Golden suggested a compromise of returning to Fiscal Year 2022 discretionary spending levels, rescinding unspent COVID-19 relief funds, reversing Biden’s $400 billion student debt cancellation plan and various tax increases meant to boost federal revenues.
“Most politicians would not talk about a proposal like this,” Golden said in April. “They fear the wrath of a thousand interest groups and accusations of being a socialist or a hateful conservative who wants to harm children and seniors.”
“We need an honest debate about the nation’s financial future. We cannot afford to kick the can down the road forever,” he said.
Many of Golden’s suggestions made it into the Biden-McCarthy “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023,” which successfully passed through the Republican-controlled House on Wednesday.
The legislation now heads to the Senate, where party leaders hope to have it passed before the weekend and on the president’s desk before Monday’s deadline, when the U.S. is expected to run out of money to meet its spending obligations.
In Wednesday’s letter, Golden summed up the Biden-McCarthy deal with the phrase “when all is said and done, more will be said than done.”
Golden accused both Republican and Democratic leaders of putting on a show of “brinkmanship and partisan politics.”
Despite Golden saying that the bill does not go far enough to reduce the nation’s deficit and that Biden should have got more in return for his concessions to McCarthy, he supported the passage of the bill.
Golden explained his support for the deal by saying that a default would be ruinous for the U.S. economy, and that slowing the projected growth of the deficit is “progress in the right direction.”
Although Golden states that the legislation will barely reduce spending in Fiscal Year 2024 and that Congress “should focus on reducing its budget deficit in real dollars,” he calls the bill’s slashing of funding to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) “terrible fiscal policy.”
As part of negotiations for the Fiscal Responsibility Act, Speaker McCarthy was able to secure a $1.4 billion reduction of Biden’s proposed increase in funding to the IRS.
“This bill cuts resources given to the IRS to enforce tax compliance on the rich over the next decade and instead pours that money into government spending today,” Golden said.
“This is a typical Washington deal that results in terrible fiscal policy,” he said.
Golden concluded his letter by reiterating the need for bipartisan collaboration in Congress.
“Most of the political professionals in Congress think the only way to play the Washington game is to play it like it’s a blood match,” Golden said.
“The country would have been better served if Congress had skipped the political fight and just gotten to work on an agreement,” he added. “The path chosen by political leaders led to a manufactured crisis that will be averted with a lukewarm deal.”
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell both support the passage of the Biden-McCarthy deal through the Senate, and will be rallying bipartisan support of the legislation for a vote before the end of the week.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="19913 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=19913">1 Comment
Yeah, but he voted for it didn’t he. He will do what he is told to do. Golden is a dumb ass and so are the folks that voted for him.