(CNS News) -- When asked whether President Joe Biden or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will ever balance the budget, Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said, “No.”
At the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, CNS News asked the senator, “The federal deficit through the first 11 months of this fiscal year was $2.7 trillion and the federal debt is now over $28 trillion -- will President Biden or Speaker Pelosi ever balance the budget?”
Tillis responded, “No.”
In a follow-up question, CNS News asked, “Do you believe they’ll take any efforts to?”
“No, I mean, you have to look back only to the $1.9 trillion package,” said Tillis. “Last year, we had five bipartisan measures that recognized the crisis that COVID put us in fiscally and from a public health perspective, and their first act when they came into the majority was a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package that had less than 10% focused on COVID relief.”
“So, if they were serious about bending the curve, they would not have implemented the bill that’s already passed, and now proposing a $3.5 trillion package that also has a lot of hidden taxes and fees that are going to hurt the people most economically challenged,” he said.
According to the U.S. Treasury, the total outstanding public debt on Sept. 20 was $28.42 trillion.
Despite these numbers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed the $3.5 trillion spending blueprint through the House in late August, reported the Wall Street Journal. The Democrat victory was a party-line vote, 220-212.
Due to the bill’s passing, the Democrats will begin the reconciliation process which allows them to pass a “broad package of healthcare, education and climate provisions in the Senate without GOP support, so long as all 50 Democratic senators back it” wrote the Journal.
However, keeping the support of all 50 Democratic senators may prove difficult, as Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kirsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have expressed concerns about the bill’s price tag.