(RepublicanJournal.org) – President Joe Biden has been hard at work with House Republicans in their attempts to negotiate the upcoming budget. However, they’ve struggled to compromise on key issues. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has held strong to conservative demands, including vast spending reductions. Still, he might need to give an inch or two if lawmakers want to reach any kind of agreement before the government goes into default. Some Republicans, like Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), are cautioning McCarthy not to cave.
Lee tweeted his stern warning on Thursday, May 25, making clear that he would fight any deal that didn’t include the “substantial spending and budgetary reforms” Republicans have been pushing. He expressed concerns that talks were moving in the wrong direction and promised to “use every procedural tool” he had to keep an inadequate proposal from passing in the Senate.
Congress members have been going back and forth for weeks over a handful of issues important to both sides. Newsweek reported that Republicans aren’t willing to compromise on military spending cuts and don’t want to put Social Security or Medicare on the chopping block either. Still, they want to see work requirements for recipients, which the Left has deemed a deal breaker. Democrats have expressed an unwillingness to make cuts in any areas that might affect healthcare and social services, leading conservative peers to threaten floating the debt ceiling as leverage.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently sent her own warning to McCarthy: the US could default on its roughly $31.46 trillion debt by June 1. Lee quickly denounced the assertion on Twitter.
Many government beneficiaries are feeling far less confident. The Associated Press reports that Americans who rely on Social Security, food stamps, and other federal services have been tightening their belts in case a default does create disbursement delays.
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