KJP deflects her mess by saying Republicans are threatening to kill millions of jobs and 401k plans

With a new debt ceiling fight brewing in Congress, the White House is now acting as if Republicans are the ones wrecking the economy.

Indeed, to hear the White House tell it, the economy is perfectly fine right now (it’s not), and it’s Republicans who are threatening to destroy it with their proposed spending cuts.

“They’re threatening to kill millions of jobs and 401(k) plans by trying to hold the debt limit hostage unless they can, again, cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut Medicaid,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre complained during a briefing Wednesday.

“So, on this last point, the President has been clear: He will not allow Republicans to take the economy hostage or make — make — make working Americans pay the price for their schemes to benefit the wealthiest Americans and also special interests,” she added.

Listen:

FYI, working-class Americans are already paying a steep price, but not because of Republicans. They’re paying this price because of the “schemes” of Democrats.

For instance, the 87,000 new IRS workers hired as per the “Inflation Reduction Act” are poised to squeeze $20 billion from working class Americans, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate.

The estimate, reported by Fox Business Network in August, specifically pertained to a Senate amendment from Sen. Mike Crapo “that would have prevented any additional IRS funds to audit taxpayers making less than $400,000 a year.”

The CBO found that by preventing the IRS from auditing less successful Americans, the government would lose $20 billion in revenue.

“Republicans on the House Ways and Means committee say that this proves that … about $20 billion dollars in revenue will be raised from increasing audits on anyone making less than $400,000. Republicans say this directly contradicts the President and other Democrats’ promise that no one in the middle and lower income brackets would get hit with increased audits,” according to FBN.

So no, it’s not Republicans who are “scheming” to take away the American people’s money. All Republicans are seeking is some fiscal discipline.

“Let’s sit down together. Let’s look at the places that we can change our behavior. Why would we sit back and be so arrogant to say, ‘No, there’s no waste in government?’” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said during a Fox News appearance Sunday.

“We’re not going to budge until we see meaningful reform with respect to spending,” House Oversight Committee chair James Comer likewise said during a CNN appearance Sunday.

He added that Republicans won the House after having “campaigned on the fact that we were going to be serious about spending cuts.”

We cannot raise the debt ceiling.

Democrats have carelessly spent our taxpayer money and devalued our currency.

They’ve made their bed, so they must lie in it.

— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) January 17, 2023

When congress increases the debt ceiling, our interest payments go up, meaning there’s less money to spend on real priorities like investing in a strong national defense.

And before we know it, we’ll be spending more on interest payments than on ANYTHING else. It’s got to stop.

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) January 18, 2023

But the White House has chosen to ignore the GOP’s points, predictably preferring instead to talk endless trash.

“Default would needlessly plunge the country into economic chaos, collapse, and catastrophe while giving our competitors like China an historic boost against us,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement this week.

“That’s why congressional Republicans – with strong bipartisan support from Democrats – avoided default three times under Donald Trump, without conditions or playing chicken with our credit rating. This president and the American people will not stand for unprecedented economic vandalism. Full stop,” he added.

The complaint was ironic because “economic vandalism” is exactly what Republicans argue that this administration’s policies have wrought on the nation.

“President Joe Biden loves to blame our sky-high inflation on corporate greed and Vladimir Putin. But a new study from the San Francisco Fed shows it was Biden himself who put America on this grim trajectory. Specifically, it was the massive $1.9 trillion stimulus dumped into the US economy in early 2021 by the president’s American Rescue Plan,” the New York Post reported in April.

“As the nearby chart demonstrates, the nation began heading into the inflationary stratosphere in early 2021, while other advanced economies, the other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, haven’t seen anything like the soaring prices now punishing workers across America,” the Post added.

Observe that chart below:

Thanks to the president’s spending — which, as a reminder, Republicans have been desperately trying to clamp down on — inflation spiked from 2 percent to 7 percent in 2021.

Meanwhile, the median inflation rate for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which is comprised of 38 member states, went from 1 percent to only 2.5 percent in 2021.

See the difference?

Dovetailing back to the present, the Biden administration has said it won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling– not even a little bit.

Just a few weeks ago, Joe Biden signed a $1.7 trillion spending monstrosity.

And now the White House says it will NOT negotiate with Republicans over the debt ceiling.

They created the problem!

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) January 18, 2023

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Vivek Saxena

Senior Staff Writer -- [email protected]
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.

V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.

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