Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, head of the Republican Study Group, says the government has more than enough money to make payments on its debts in August as well as take care of senior citizens and military servicemen. Jordan also told Fox News’ Neal Cavuto Tuesday President Barack Obama should be reassuring Americans instead of resorting to scare tactics.
“There’s plenty of money in the month of August to take care of the bondholders, to make sure Social Security recipients get their checks, and to make sure our men and women who wear the uniforms, who protect us, who will defend our country, our troops get paid.” Jordan said. “After that, of course, the president will have to make some choices — he would have to lead — he would have to make some decisions about what else gets paid in what order. But there’s plenty of money in the month of August to take care of those three things.”
Jordan — who is co-sponsoring legislation that would ensure the three priorities are financed — said the president is taking a negative approach instead of reassuring.
“Instead of scaring seniors, instead of scaring veterans and our troops, he could go out and say: ‘Look, there’s money enough to make sure we pay the bondholders — so there is no default. There’s money to pay Social Security checks — so they go out on time. And there’s money to pay our troops.’
“He could be reassuring the nation, instead of scaring the nation — and yet he has chosen the scare-tactic route,” Jordan said. “And so we said let’s put a piece of legislation out there to draw attention to this issue that in fact there is sufficient — there are sufficient dollars to take care of troops, and our Social Security recipients, and make sure our bondholders get paid.”
Cavuto then noted there were indications that conservatives and tea party members were against House Speaker John Boehner’s deficit-reduction plan, in part because it contained insufficient spending cuts.
“Well, look, I appreciate what the Speaker has had to deal with — dealing with Senator Reid, dealing with President Obama, and negotiating. The fact that he has kept tax increases out of any proposal that has been put forward by Republicans, I appreciate — we are not going to go for tax increases — so I appreciate the Speaker’s work,” Jordan said.
“Frankly, we are troubled that there aren’t any real cuts in the first year — just $7 billion in reduction in discretionary spending —we don’t think that is enough,” he said. “But also what we are mostly concerned about is, we think this is the moment where we should get a balanced budget amendment sent to the states, change the way we do things, put the requirements on politicians that every family, every business, every county, every township, every state has to abide that.”
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