On Friday morning, the House successfully passed the Build Back Better Act, a monumental piece of socially oriented spending legislation that would provide support for improving health care access, fighting climate change, and more. The legislation isn’t law yet — it still has to go through the Senate before an eventual signature by President Joe Biden — but former President Trump is already freaking out. In a Friday statement, Trump placed responsibility for stopping the Build Back Better Act on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who he harangued for supporting a temporary extension of the debt ceiling earlier this year.
The debt ceiling refers to the legally allowable limit for borrowing by the U.S. government in order to pay for previously authorized spending. As summarized by a Treasury Department webpage, the debt limit “is the total amount of money that the United States government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and other payments.” In his angry Friday statement, Trump suggested holding the debt limit hostage — and refusing to extend it — as leverage against the Build Back Better agenda.
As Trump put it:
‘Looks like the Democrats are getting far more than they ever dreamed possible, largely because of Mitch McConnell’s idiotic move of giving in on the Debt Ceiling and giving them two months to get their act together. They are destroying our Country! We have been put in a much worse negotiating position, but we have the “Trump Card,” and it’s called the Debt Ceiling. If they don’t drop this horrendous, Communistic style Bill that will be ruinous to all we stand for as a Country, we should not approve a Debt Ceiling increase. The Old Broken Crow has to be willing to play this hand, not like last time when he folded up like a cheap umbrella.’
Trump added that “the Debt Ceiling is far less destructive than the Bill that they will otherwise successfully pass” — although that same Treasury Department webpage explained how failing to increase the debt limit “would cause the government to default on its legal obligations – an unprecedented event in American history,” which “would precipitate another financial crisis and threaten the jobs and savings of everyday Americans – putting the United States right back in a deep economic hole, just as the country is recovering from the recent recession.” To be clear, Trump is insisting upon taking the extreme measure of pushing the country closer to that potential catastrophe in an effort to subvert a bill that (in the House’s version) would, among other components, establish a universal pre-kindergarten program and cap the price of insulin at $35.
Check out Trump’s statement below:
NEW!
“Looks like the Democrats are getting far more than they ever dreamed possible, largely because of Mitch McConnell’s idiotic move of giving in on the Debt Ceiling and giving them two months to get their act together. They are destroying our Country! We have been put in a… pic.twitter.com/AyY9jdnabI
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) November 19, 2021
