Utah Republican Rep. Chris Stewart expressed in the debate about the debt ceiling that this moment is a critical change to severely rein in the spending of the government.
While speaking on the Sunday edition of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Stewart claimed that the extreme government spending was the main driving factor of the currently spiking levels of inflation. he went on to say that he did not wish to force a wholesale shutdown of the government but did have hope that those on either side of the aisle could end up coming up with a suitable and workable answer.
“Well, we certainly want to work with [Democrats],” explained Stewart. “And we hope that they’ll work with us and the president will work with us. Look, I’m not a fan of government shutdowns. I honestly don’t know anyone who is. It doesn’t help. On the other hand, I do want to make this point, it’s so important, look, the reason that we’re dealing with inflation that we are, which has been generational, and it’s worth remembering that it hurts the poorest among us.”
“[T]here will be Republicans who will say, ‘we need to reform, ‘we need to use this as a vehicle to try to put some limits on our spending and our debt and our deficits,'” he went on.
“And I am one of them. And there are many others who will be, so the question that you’ve asked now is, are those two principles, you know, the fact we need to reform and cut our deficits in our spending, can we reconcile that with at the same time, we don’t want to harm the credit the United States government. That’s our goal. I think Republicans are aligned on that. I hope the president is as well. And hopefully we get to agreement on that.”
Currently, the federal government is slated to slam into its statutory debt limit as soon as this coming Thursday. As part of a letter sent out to the leader of Congress last Friday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen issued a dire warning that government must start by taking “extraordinary measures” as a means to safeguard the United States from defaulting on its debts.
The measures that are slated to be taken this month include the total suspension of new investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund, and the Government Securities Investment Fund.
However, a recent analysis coming from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget discovered that a 26% cut needs to be carried out across the board in order to balance out the federal government in the next decade.