-I'm prepared to begin
a separate discussion about my budget,
but not under the threat of default.
-I would hope that he would be willing to negotiate
so we could actually solve this problem
and not take America on the brink.
-For the 21st time this century,
Republicans and Democrats are debating over the debt ceiling,
or the total amount of money
the U.S. government is allowed to borrow
to pay for its spending.
-They didn't produce a budget.
What they did was produce a ransom note.
-The United States is not going to default.
-But uncertainty over how to raise the debt ceiling
has reached a level not seen in years,
in part due to the narrowest
House Republican majority in decades
that has conditioned a debt increase
on spending cuts.
Hanging in the balance
is the full faith and credit of the United States
and a possible economic calamity.
-If the Congress does not authorize additional borrowing,
would be an unprecedented event that economists say
could cause a recession or a global financial crisis.
-For years, this was done without much controversy.
But in recent years,
the federal debt has grown significantly
as Republicans have broadly opposed tax increases
and Democrats have broadly resisted calls to cut spending.
-Our country is on an unsustainable debt path.
The debt's growing faster than the economy.
-It's gonna very substantially worsen in the next three decades
unless some major changes are implemented,
both on the revenue side and on the spending side.
-We're looking at major funding shortfalls
for Social Security and Medicare
that could materialize within the next decade.
-Experts say that failing to raise the debt ceiling
would be catastrophic for the economy,
but failing to curb deficits
could also threaten its long-term health.
-If we breach the debt ceiling,
the value of Treasury bonds is going to collapse
as investors demand an ever higher premium
on newly issued debt.
-I fear that if lawmakers take this right up to the "X" date,
the turmoil in markets will be so significant
that it undermines what confidence is left
and pushes us into a recession.
-We're not looking at just a crisis for the U.S. economy,
although that is a potential outcome here.
We are looking at a fundamental building block
of the global economy being knocked out.
-This is a cycle.
I predict to you that a lot of those new members
who came here with my way or the highway,
they'll either be on the highway
or they'll learn that they have to have compromise.
-Republicans and Democrats
have increasingly used the debt ceiling
as leverage for spending concessions.
And at times, the closer the U.S. got to default,
the more significant the concessions.
-The pressures that led to 2011
are still pretty much the same pressures
that are at work today.
-In 2011, Congress enacted broad spending cuts
in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling.
House Republicans are now trying
to again leverage the debt ceiling
to extract even larger spending concessions
than what was included in the 2011 deal.
-We are headed to a fiscal cliff in this country,
and rather than trying to slow down
and find an off-ramp,
our President and Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate
seem to be pushing down hard on the accelerator.
-We've been talking about the debt for so long
that I think people assume
that things are only as bad today
as they were 10 years ago and 20 years ago,
because we were talking about it then, too.
-For months, President Biden refused
to do what Vice President Biden did in 2011 --
negotiate over the debt ceiling.
-The reality is that this town
has routinely tied these issues together,
as evidenced by the fact that the seven
most recent budgetary controls enacted by Congress
came about as a part of the debt-ceiling negotiations.
-The House Republican plan
would return spending to 2022 levels,
but it does not specify
the exact agencies or programs that it would cut.
-It's a way for both sides to claim,
"Hey, we're getting the budget under control,"
without getting into the weeds
of what they're actually gonna cut yet,
the danger being that once they get into trying to decide
how to cut and meet the new caps,
I think they'll find them to be much more difficult
to meet in practice than in theory.
-The narrowest House majority in decades
has further complicated the negotiations
and has raised the stakes for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
-This does feel different.
We are getting very, very close.
And I think the different dynamic here
is that you have House Republican majority
that is just so razor-thin.
Even among the House Republicans realize
they might not have all the votes.
-It was really unclear whether Kevin McCarthy
would secure enough votes to become Speaker.
And as part of that process,
he gave in several meaningful concessions
to House conservative backbenchers
that stipulated that they would be able
to essentially challenge his speakership at any point.
And the underlying debate there
was over whether McCarthy would really push hard enough
to secure concessions over this fight --
over the fight over spending and over the debt limit.
-Any agreement must garner 60 votes in the Senate,
and even some Democrats have pushed Biden
to compromise on spending with Republicans.
-Hopefully put everybody at the table
and start to come up with some topline numbers.
And both sides feel they give a little bit
and they're not happy necessarily with the deal,
but a deal has been struck -- that's a good deal.
-But any deal is likely to contain provisions
that some House Republicans oppose,
potentially jeopardizing McCarthy's speakership.
-When you start talking about funding the government,
that could be the first time
we can see McCarthy's speakership
really become tenuous.
And, you know, if they do not appease those conservatives
and what they want,
you could see one of them raising their hand
and saying, "I motion to vacate Speaker Kevin McCarthy."
-What's a red line?
It's whatever our conference tells us their red line is.
-We're not gonna pass any solution that's got new taxes.
The time has come for us to talk about the growth
of discretionary spending in this country.
And I have every expectation
that the deal Kevin McCarthy cuts
will have the support of a majority of his conference.
I think it should.
I think that would best serve the interests of the country.
-11th-hour deals have staved off default
in previous debt-limit fights,
but congressional observers remain unsure
how this fight ends.
-This is one of those times where there are some people
who aren't clearly intent
on making sure we raise the debt ceiling.
-The probability that you get into
one of those darker scenarios
is much higher than it has been in previous debt-limit debates.
It's still low.
-I think the odds are very good
that they will come to an agreement on how to raise it.
The risk is they lose control of the process
through brinkmanship.
They say, "Well, we don't want that to happen,"
but then they have a difficulty
corralling their own votes to avoid it not happening.
-10 years ago, we were talking about bipartisan compromises
to cut spending and raise taxes.
Now the conversation has completely moved to a situation
where Democrats won't entertain any new spending cuts, really,
and Republicans won't entertain any new tax hikes.
Shows just how far away we've moved
for an actual solution to the debt problem.