DeSantis reveals what Biden isn’t telling us about the debt ceiling, “Our country will be careening toward bankruptcy”
Last month, the Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, provided a stark analysis of the impending vote set to determine if the United States should stave off a default in the coming week. The bottom line of his commentary was the enormous amount of funds expended by the federal government, irrespective of the vote’s outcome.
The governor’s remarks followed a prior agreement between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California. This agreement, reached on Sunday, proposed a rise in the debt ceiling sufficient for two years, carrying the limit past the forthcoming presidential election in 2024. This increase was in exchange for a decrease in government spending.
During his Memorial Day interview, DeSantis told host Kayleigh McEnany that the national debt was in a precarious situation, irrespective of the recent deal. He cited the escalating federal spending since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as the primary cause.
The governor expressed, “Well, prior to this deal, Kayleigh, our country was careening towards bankruptcy. And after this deal, our country will still be careening toward bankruptcy.”
In essence, the agreement between McCarthy and Biden would result in an additional $4 trillion of national debt. This prospective scenario has already invoked criticism from a number of Republican lawmakers who are pledging to vote against it.
DeSantis remarked, “To say you can do $4 trillion of increases in the next year and a half, I mean, that’s a massive amount of spending.”
The governor, however, did not lay the blame solely on President Joe Biden, who is currently 80 years old. He conveyed that the country has been over-spending since the latter years of the Trump administration. DeSantis, a newly declared presidential candidate, is the most formidable competition for the 76-year-old former President Trump for the Republican presidential ticket for 2024.
According to DeSantis, “I think that we’ve gotten ourselves on a trajectory here, really since March of 2020, with some of the COVID spending and totally reset the budget, and they’re sticking with that.” He expressed his belief that the current spending pattern would prove insufficient for improving the nation’s fiscal standing.
DeSantis then proceeded to extol his own state’s financial management, stating that Florida, known as the Sunshine State, consistently reports significant budget surpluses. He elaborated, “We have a $1.2 trillion dollar economy, but our debt is only $17 billion — the second-lowest per capita in the country. But we make tough choices, [and] make sure that we look forward to the long haul.”
The governor further criticized the recurring cycles in Washington, D.C., stating, “Obviously in Washington, DC, they do these cycles to just get that through the next election. And that’s ultimately one of the reasons why they continue to fail.”
