The recent spending battle in Congress saw major infighting among Republicans over the United States’ debt ceiling. President-elect Donald Trump called for ending the debt ceiling, but Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and other GOP budget hawks maintained that the U.S. must do a lot more to lower its federal deficit.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), another budget hawk, was so incensed over the spending deal that he was the lone Republican who refused to vote in favor of keeping Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) as speaker when a new Congress was seated on January 3.
The spending bill that was signed into law by outgoing President Joe Biden was a stopgap measure that Johnson supported.
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But according to Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman, Johnson said he “wants to extend the debt limit for the entirety of Trump’s presidency.”
In a January 14 post on X, formerly Twitter, Sherman reported that Johnson also “said it would be ‘costly’ — meaning Democrats would exact a price for their votes.”
Sherman tweeted, “ALSO: JOHNSON said he’s ‘agnostic’ whether the debt limit rides on reconciliation or elsewhere. He’s discussing [with] [H]ouse [Republicans] today, he said.”
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