by Harold Hutchison
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida ripped House Speaker Kevin McCarthy early Monday over the debt ceiling deal, calling it “totally inadequate” when it came to addressing spending.
“Prior to this deal, Kayleigh, our country was careening toward bankruptcy and after this deal, our country will still be careening toward bankruptcy,” DeSantis said to “Fox and Friends” guest host Kayleigh McEnany.
“To say you can do $4 trillion of increases in the next year and a half, I mean, that is massive amount of spending,” DeSantis continued. “I think that we’ve gotten ourselves on a trajectory, really since March of 2020 with some of the COVID spending and totally reset the budget and they are sticking with that and I think that is totally inadequate to get us in a better spot.”
McCarthy released the text of the Fiscal Responsibility Act on Sunday evening, which increases the debt ceiling through Jan. 1, 2025, taking it past the 2024 presidential election. The House is expected to vote on the legislation on Wednesday, following a 72-hour period for members to read the bill, a provision of the rules changes proposed by the Freedom Caucus and agreed to by McCarthy prior to his election as speaker.
The law freezes discretionary spending on non-defense budgetary items at Fiscal Year 2022 levels, adds reforms to permitting for energy projects and places new work requirements on some welfare programs. Many of those provisions were in the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which passed the House of Representatives by a 217-215 vote on April 26.
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Harold Hutchison is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Ron DeSantis” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0. Photo “Kevin McCarthy” by Kevin McCarthy. Background Photo “U.S. Capitol” by Florian Pintar.
