AOC slams GOP after Gaetz admits debt limit negotiations are a ‘hostage situation’
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., has condemned Republicans’ risky handling of the rapidly approaching debt ceiling after Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, Florida, openly admitted on Tuesday that his party was treating the issue as a “hostage negotiation.” considered .
Politically commentators And legislature have long held that the Republican Party’s debt-ceiling strategy — demanding massive cuts in social programs from Democrats or otherwise risking some economic disaster — is a hostage situation that could lead to economic ruin.
However, Gaetz openly admitted this in an interview with Semafor on Tuesday, even saying that the hostage’s demands should be ignored. “I think my conservative colleagues support the majority Limit, save, growand they don’t feel that we should negotiate with our hostage,” he said.
Later Tuesday night, Ocasio-Cortez criticized Republicans for sticking to their extremist demands move even further right during talks with Democratic leaders, noting that economists and the Treasury Department say the “X-date,” or the day the government will run out of money to pay its bills and be forced to pay its bills to service credits, is already coming June 1st – only about a week away.
“Even President Trump said during his tenure that using the debt limit as leverage or a negotiating tool was absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable because the stakes were just too high.” said the progressive on CNN. “Holding the entire US economy hostage, especially when the Republican assessment is cynical and says, ‘If we destroy the economy, we expect people to blame the President,’ is reckless and irresponsible.”
“The risk of default cannot be overstated,” she continued. “The resulting chaos and impact on people’s everyday lives would likely be immediate. And that’s one of the reasons we need to take defaults off the table and get Republicans to raise the debt ceiling.”
Lawmakers went on to say that Gaetz’s comment clarifies the circumstances surrounding the debt ceiling negotiations.
“For all the talk of negotiations, Republicans are not negotiating at all.” said Ocasio Cortez. “Republican Matt Gaetz expressed in a party meeting today that it is indeed a case of a hostage situation. And I want to clarify what the Republican Party is holding hostage. It’s not the Democrats. It’s about the entire US economy.”
Republicans were trying to force Democrats to choose between two impossible situations, she said: the risk of a US default and its potential recession, harmful hurt America’s creditworthiness on a global scale or give in to Republican demands strengthen the fossil fuel industryconsumes billions of dollars away from They disrupt important health and education programs and hamper future government spending negotiations for decades to come.
Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that Republicans are so reckless in approaching the debt ceiling that they won’t even acknowledge it that the deadline on June 1, like Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned is legitimate with The Republicans make the bet that the country’s leading economists are wrong, without any evidence of their own.
Progressives, including Ocasio-Cortez and other prominent lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have resisted the idea that Democrats must make concessions to raise the debt ceiling, as Democratic leaders seem to think. This week 66 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a letter to President Joe Biden to invoke the 14th Amendment clause that allegedly allows him to bypass the Republicans and raise the debt ceiling.
sanders has similar urged Biden to exercise the 14th Amendment option, prompting ten of his Senate peers to issue a separate letter last week urging Biden to act boldly to “prevent.”[t] a global economic catastrophe.
