Government spending is the No. 1 problem in America, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he won’t rule out a government shutdown if President Barack Obama refuses to address the country’s growing fiscal woes.
“We now have a debt the size of our economy, which makes us look a lot like Greece,” McConnell said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It’s a shame that the president doesn’t embrace the effort to reduce spending.”
When host David Gregory asked McConnell about the debt ceiling, and whether Republicans would consider a government shutdown to force the issue of spending cuts, the leader did not rule out the possibility.
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“None of us like using these situations, like the sequestration or the debt ceiling or the operation of government, to try to engage the president to deal with this,” McConnell said. “If we’re not going to deal with it now, when are we going to deal with it? We’ve watched the government explode over the last four years.
“Now, the question is, will the president lead?” McConnell continued. “Why should we have to be bringing him to the table? Why isn’t he leading us in the direction of beginning to solve our long-term debt and deficit problem? It’s perplexing to me that the president of the United States, elected to lead the country, is so reluctant to engage on the most important issue confronting our future.”
McConnell said the Democratic Senate and Republican House have no choice but to work toward reducing America’s “massive, massive debt.”
“I wouldn’t have chosen this government,” he said. “I voted for Mitt Romney. If Mitt Romney had been elected, nobody’s taxes would have gone up, but this is the government we have, and can we make some progress for the country over the next two years? I’m hopeful we can.”
The answer is not tax increases, McConnell added.
“We don’t have this problem because we tax too little,” he explained. “We have it because we spend way, way too much.”
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