September 3, 2017

Trump's Treasury Secretary told FNS' Chris Wallace that they will push to include funding Hurricane Harvey relief to raising the debt limit saying, "The president and I believe that it should be tied to the Harvey funding."

When President Obama was elected, Republicans suddenly and dangerously played games with the U.S. debt ceiling, using it as a weapon against him after the rise of the wackos in the tea party caucus, even though it would cause irrevocable harm to the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

They used the debt ceiling to try and cut government spending in all other departments to offset any new monies spent, you know, to help Americans.

To help you, we must hurt them.

Republicans in the Freedom Caucus (those same tea party wackos) are now demanding that Harvey aid and the debt ceiling not be tied together, insisting on a clean debt ceiling bill.

Wallace asked, "House Freedom Caucus member Mark Meadows says he does not want to see that disaster aid tied to a bill to raise the debt limit. Can you guarantee him and others that that won't happen?"

Mnuchin replied, "No, I can't. Quite the contrary. The president and I believe that it should be tied to the Harvey funding. Our first priority is to make sure that the state gets money. It is critical. And to do that, we need to make sure we raise the debt limit."

Now Trump has began a new game of chicken with Congress.

Nick Mulvaney, Trump's Budget Director, actually tried to get legislation passed when he offered up "an amendment to require that $17 billion worth of the package be offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget" during the Sandy crisis as a member of the House Freedom Caucus in 2012.

Despite blatantly using Harvey as a political weapon, Mnuchin said, "We need to put politics aside and we’re going to be urging Congress to get both of those things done as quickly as they can."

Host Chris Wallace said this was making news and followed up, "And again, just to pin this down, if the debt limit isn't raised, will that interfere with the relief effort?

Mnuchin replied, "It will."

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