The debt ceiling debate is "confusing and it's deliberately confusing" because it's only the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to how much damage the federal government's spending is doing, Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, told Newsmax on Sunday.
"The problem isn't deficits or debt," Norquist said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "That's the tip of the iceberg. The challenge is the damage done to the economy and how much money the federal government spends. It spends too much."
But President Joe Biden is wanting to spend even more money while Republicans want to bring the spending down so that the government is "less of a burden on the American people," and that is creating an impasse over whether to raise the debt ceiling, Norquist said.
"Biden's taking that up to about 24% of the GDP when it used to be 20%, it used to be 15%, it used to be 10%, it used to be 3%, and he's taking it up again," said Norquist. "This is a question of how big should the government be, and how much should they spend. It's being fought on this basis because there is a law that says the government has to pay how much you're going to borrow. If you want to borrow more, you have to pass a law to allow that."
This means that the current argument allows the American people to "grab Biden and the Democrats by the collar and say 'Look, stop all this spending. Let's talk about this,'" said Norquist.
However, Biden doesn't want to discuss the issue, but he has to, Norquist added.
"Here's the good news: we did this 10 years ago and we won 10 years ago," said Norquist. "10 years ago, everything that Biden is doing and the Democrats was done by [Barack] Obama and the Democrats," he commented. "No one should ever attach anything to the debt ceiling. Half the time the debt ceiling has something attached to it."
Obama he added, "… agreed with the Republican position and caved, and took $2.4 trillion in spending down over a 10-year period in order to get the $2.4 trillion debt ceiling increase."
And Republicans, he said are asking the obvious question about how much of a debt ceiling is being sought.
"Give us that much in spending with laws to back it up," said Norquist. "Then, we've got a deal. Some Republicans are saying we want $2 for every $1. I'm in favor of asking for that but one-to-one was a huge win when we took it away from Obama. It would be a huge win now. You can get more. I'm all in."
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