White House: Government Debt Doesn’t Weaken America ‘at All’

On Friday’s edition of NBC’s “Now Tonight,” White House Council of Economic Advisers member Jared Bernstein argued that America’s government debt doesn’t weaken the country.

Host Jake Ward asked, “For those of us at home, the idea of having debt sounds like a very, very bad thing. … What I want to ask you here is, is [Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)] right, does our debt as a nation make us weak?”

Bernstein responded, “Not at all. First of all, the key point there though — and I will — again, I’ll answer your question, but I think the House leader is engaging in a kind of sleight of hand there in the following sense: If Kevin McCarthy and the House Republicans believe that we should lower the debt, they have every right and even every obligation to their constituents — if that’s their position — to write new spending bills, future spending bills that reduce our debt, either raise revenues or cut spending. That’s absolutely their prerogative. But raising the debt ceiling is necessary to pay spending obligations for which we have already agreed, okay? Funding our military, paying our Social Security recipients, paying our bondholders. These are debts. These are obligations that Congresses — this Congress and other Congresses — have already endorsed, have already signed off on. It’s exactly analogous to having your dinner at the restaurant and saying, I’m not going to pay for this meal because there have been too many meals that we’ve been having lately. It’s just really a non-sequitur. Again, if they want to take action on further spending to reduce the debt, go ahead and introduce bills. Joe Biden has shown that deficit reduction is something he’s pretty good at, 1.7 trillion over his first couple of years.”

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