‘Let’s Get in the Room Now’: House GOP Lawmaker Calls for Battle Over US Debt Ceiling

The debt ceiling, also known as the debt limit, is a cap on the total amount of money that the US government is authorized to borrow via Treasury securities to fulfill its financial obligations.

The Texas Republican has made it clear that he would hail a battle over the US debt ceiling, urging both parties to begin negotiating terms for the increase now so that it doesn’t go down to the wire.

“Our point is, let’s fight now to end the status quo. Let’s get in the room now,” Chip Roy, who is member of the right-wing House bloc Freedom Caucus, told a US media outlet on Sunday.

The 50-year-old added that he was “not going to play the what-if games of how we’re going to use the tools of the House to make sure that we enforce the terms of the agreement.”

“But we will use the tools of the House to enforce the terms of the agreement,” the GOP lawmaker pointed out.

The remarks came after House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy clinched a deal with the Freedom Caucus to get their votes in the speaker election, which McCarthy finally won on Sunday.

One of Freedom Caucus’ main demands was using the US debt limit to try to force deep cuts in the federal budget. The issue is expected to come to the fore after July 1 when the $31 trillion limit will need to be raised to prevent a government default on debt payments.

President Joe Biden previously pledged that he won’t make concessions to keep Republicans from forcing a first-ever default on the national debt.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, for her part, told reporters on Sunday that “Congress is going to need to raise the debt limit without conditions and it’s just that simple.”

She warned that “attempts to exploit the debt ceiling as leverage will not work. There will be no hostage-taking.”

Freedom Caucus chair Scott Perry, in turn, said in an interview with a separate US media outlet that when it comes to the US’ possible default on its debt, “Everybody should negotiate.”

“We can’t just keep doing the same thing under the same conditions with the same management and expect different outcomes,” Perry noted.