Mace backs McCarthy on GOP's debt-ceiling strategy

Rep. Nancy Mace said Sunday that she backed a GOP strategy to force a standoff over the debt ceiling should Republicans retake the House in November.

The South Carolina Republican told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that she backed Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on using debt-limit negotiations to gain leverage over Democrats on spending cuts.

“I support that strategy because, look, at the end of the day, when Covid-19 happened, you had the federal government and state governments literally shut companies down,” said Mace, who sits on the House Oversight Committee. “Businesses had to make tough decisions about how they were going to keep their doors open. The federal government just kept getting record revenue year over year and hasn’t had to make those tough decisions.”

President Joe Biden on Friday vowed that he “will not yield” to GOP demands that Democrats cut entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security in exchange for avoiding a debt-ceiling standoff. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, on Sunday backed Biden’s stance.

Pressed by Tapper on the potential toll of such uncertainty on the economy and working people, Mace said: “Well, we’ve seen Republicans for a year and a half now talk about more responsible spending. Looking at the deficit spending in these bills that have been passed, talking about how we can move this country forward, and we’ve been shut out. When we did the infrastructure bill on the House side last year, every Republican was shut out of being part of that discussion.”

“So, Republicans have tried to work with, reach across the aisle, and have been shut out of many of those conversations,” she added. “And so I think that is a way to negotiate moving forward.”

Mace further cited a bill she had filed earlier this year seeking to balance the budget in five years.

“If we could do that, then we wouldn’t need to use the threat of the debt ceiling as a negotiating tool,” she said.

On Ukraine, Mace cautioned that while the war-ravaged country is “important” to American interests, the U.S. should not keep writing “blank checks” to foreign nations.

Mace also said the U.S. should lift tariffs imposed on China under the Trump administration.

“Lifting tariffs makes the costs of goods cheaper for every American,” Mace said. “We need to look at more broadly the supply chain and incentivize companies to perhaps get out of China and come back to North America.”