U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Newsmax on Monday he doesn't understand why President Joe Biden is stalling on negotiations about the U.S.'s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, which it is expected to hit sometime this summer.
Last week, the GOP-led House passed a proposal to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion with about $4.5 trillion in spending cuts. Biden initially said he would not negotiate until the House presented its proposal, but since it passed, the White House has said there must be no preconditions on raising the debt ceiling, such as spending cuts.
On Monday, Biden invited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to the White House for a meeting May 9, presumably to talk about the debt ceiling.
"I don't know why President Biden has been stalling all this time," Lankford told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "The House has now voted on a proposal, and they're waiting on the president. The president's not saying, 'let's vote today' or 'let's actually talk about it today.' He's pushing it back and saying, 'next week, let's get together.' The president's the one that is actually stalling on this."
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the U.S. could reach its debt limit on June 1, when it will no longer be able to pay its debt and could lose its reserve currency status. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the U.S. would reach the limit in July or September. The U.S. has never defaulted on its debt.
"We're not going to get to that point," Lankford said. "We're going to be able to negotiate this out. But right now, it's the president that's actually trying to do the big cliffhanger in turning to Republicans and saying, 'you're putting us all at risk,' and that's just factually not true."
In 1917, during World War I, Congress gave the Treasury Department authority to borrow up to a certain amount, and if it reached that limit, it had to come back to Congress to get permission to borrow more. According to NPR, since 1960, Congress has raised, extended or revised the debt limit 78 times. It has never been lowered.
"We're the only country in the world that has a debt ceiling like this," Lankford said. "The reason we have a debt ceiling, and it's been around for a century, is so we'll debate debt when we get to that debt ceiling. For the president to say no, this is the wrong time to debate debt, this is actually exactly the right time to be able to do it. The whole reason we have a debt ceiling vote at all is so we'll talk about how do we actually reduce spending? How do we balance out our books with these kinds of climbing rates? We've got to be able to talk about it."
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