House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer is splashing cold water on Republican proposals to wrap the shutdown and debt ceiling debate into a single battle.
“That’s absurd on its face,” Hoyer said on Jansing & Co. Friday.
With the government in Day 4 of shutdown, the Democrat criticized Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn for raising the issue. “Maybe we’re at the point where we need to roll the [continuing resolution] and the debt ceiling discussions together and say let’s look at this long-term,” the Tennessee Republican said on The Daily Rundown Friday.
The government is set to hit its debt-ceiling limit of $16.7 trillion within the next two weeks. Without any action, the U.S. will suffer a historic default on Oct. 17.
“Nobody in their right mind believes we can get to the kind of big deal that I am for…a bipartisan big deal to get us on a fiscally sustainable path,” Hoyer said.
“Every time we get to one half, that is revenues, and away from entitlements, away from cuts and spending, the Republicans walk away from the table,” Hoyer said. He told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing that for six months, Republicans have “refused” to negotiate a big deal.
“So now we come to the point where the issue is shutting down government, which is stupid, and defaulting on our national debt, which John Boehner and all of us would think would be a very catastrophic policy,” he said. “And yet the Republicans stay stuck in the mud and don’t know what they want.”
Erin Delmore