Wyden Statement on McCarthy Debt Ceiling Proposal

Washington, D.C. — Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today issued the following statement on the House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling proposal:

“It’s clear that nothing unites House Republicans more than helping rich people cheat on their taxes. Republican cuts to the IRS made it far too easy for wealthy tax cheats to get away with breaking the law, and they want to keep it that way. Democrats passed funding for tax enforcement specifically to crack down on the wealthy cheats and scofflaw corporations who rip off all the Americans who follow the law and pay their taxes. Repealing that funding was the first bill House Republicans passed this year, and it’s a centerpiece of the ransom Speaker McCarthy has cobbled together as he threatens to trigger a catastrophic default.

“The rest of this McCarthy bill is no better. By repealing the clean energy provisions I authored in the Inflation Reduction Act, House Republicans are proposing a total surrender to the climate crisis. Big Oil would celebrate, but it would be an enormous loss for American workers and manufacturers who have an opportunity to thrive as a result of the clean energy transformation the IRA is already driving across the country. Firms in China and elsewhere will grow at our expense if Speaker McCarthy gets his way. Even Republican priorities like carbon capture and biodiesel would suffer.

“No House Republican economic plan is complete without an attack on health care in America. Speaker McCarthy’s ransom now includes health care for millions of working people, and even their food. The so-called ‘work requirements’ he’s proposing are nothing more than a scam aimed at burying people in paperwork as a backdoor way to prevent them from getting the help they need to get by. Republicans have tried this scam before at the state level in Arkansas, and it did nothing to increase employment. All it did was boot tens of thousands of people off their Medicaid coverage.

“Republicans manufactured this crisis, and Speaker McCarthy’s proposal to get out of it would destroy jobs, worsen health care, increase hunger, hurt the climate and make millions of American families poorer. This hostage taking cannot continue.”

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