Baton Rouge Congressman Garret Graves is one of the top Republican mediators in the debt ceiling talks. President Biden is urging Congress to raise the nation’s debt limit, now at 31 trillion dollars. Graves says the GOP is willing to raise the debt ceiling but they want to cut spending.
“We have the highest level of spending, and the highest debt when you compare it to the overall economy of the country in our history and so it makes clear that’s what’s going on right now is a major problem that is unstainable,” said Graves.
But the White House believes deficits can be reduced if tax breaks end for wealthy households and some corporations.
Negotiators are facing a June 1st deadline and if a deal is not reached, financial markets could be thrown into upheaval as the federal government would default on its debts. Graves says they are making some progress in negotiations.
“We still have a long way to go, and the biggest gap is trying to figure out the appropriate funding levels at this point, what is the right funding levels and what is reasonable,” said Graves.
Graves says taking tax breaks away is not a way to raise revenue, instead it’s time the federal government spends less money than it did this year.
“You think about the fact that we spent 783-million dollars to stimulus checks to prisoners we send thousands of checks to citizens of Japan,” said Graves.
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