U.S. Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, told Newsmax on Wednesday that “rubber stamped” policies by “Republicans in the last Congress” have contributed to crises with the southern border and debt ceiling.
“We've said since Christmas of last year that voting along with this omnibus bill would put us in the position that we're in today, and that is giving us very little wiggle room,” Gooden told “The Chris Salcedo Show.” “Fortunately, we have this debt ceiling, this debt limit, issue to try to hold the Biden administration accountable, but people are so furious that we are still suffering under the horrible policies that were rubber stamped by Republicans in the last Congress, and we're seeing the fruits of those bad decisions come to fruition with what's happening down at the border and across the United States government today.”
When presented with the possibility that President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats could claim that Republicans caused the U.S. to default on its debt, despite remaining deadlocked at the negotiating table, Gooden said, “You know, they can claim anything they want, but I don't believe the American people will believe them.”
“And you know the speaker's leadership has really been spectacular,” he said of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. “He has kept our conference together. He got the votes that he needed to where we can now, as Republicans, say that we are the only group in town that has made a positive, responsible move toward raising the debt limit.”
“We've said we will raise it responsibly,” he added. “We won't just raise it without any conditions — we’ll do it responsibly. I'm not very thankful for the job that Mitch McConnell [R-Ky.] has done over there in the Senate, but this is one of the rare times he's actually doing the right thing, and he's deferring to ... Kevin McCarthy and saying, ‘You, Mr. President need to negotiate with the speaker.’ In the past, McConnell has been quick to make a deal with the Democrats.”
Gooden also said this has been the first time since he has been in Congress that he has seen “Mitch McConnell actually step aside and not save the day for the Democrats,” adding that he hopes McConnell “will keep that up.”
“I'm excited to see Kevin McCarthy win this fight, and I do believe that Joe Biden is going to have to come to the table,” he said. “They're going to admit, I believe in the next week or two, that they've got to negotiate and, as soon as they do that, they have admitted defeat. But I think a defeat for the Biden administration is a win for the American people because we just can't go along with what we've been doing the last 100 years.”
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