Sen. Mike Rounds (R.S.D.) said Monday that tying the debt ceiling to aid for the deadly wildfires California has recently faced is “not meant to be a penalty.”
In a previous conversation on “The Hill” with NewsNation's Blake Berman, Berman asked Lowndes about the possibility that fire aid “has something to do with increasing the debt limit.”
“I think that's the only option, because if you don't have the ability to borrow money, you can't provide support,” Lowndes responded.
Mr Lowndes then added: “The Secretary of the Treasury has already advised us that we are taking extraordinary steps to pay our bills until we raise the debt limit again.”
“It's not meant to be a penalty or to delay delivery,” Lowndes said of the relationship between fire aid and debt limits. “It simply means we need to expedite the conversation about the debt ceiling.”
Recent fires in the Los Angeles area have devastated communities, destroyed property en masse, and left the death toll in the double digits.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) on Monday floated the idea of tying the debt ceiling increase to disaster aid to states.
Asked by reporters about the debt limit bill being aligned with a potential disaster relief package, Johnson told reporters: “There's a discussion about that, but we'll see how it goes.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) also said Monday that California “doesn't qualify” for funding unless it makes “some changes” after the wildfires.
“When you go to California, you meet a lot of Republicans, a lot of good people. I hate them, but they're just overwhelmed by the woke policies of the inner cities, along with the people who vote for them,'' Tuberville said. He spoke on Newsmax's “Chris Salcedo Show.”
“And that’s… you know, I don’t mind sending them some money, but unless they indicate that they are. [going to] They change their ways and go back to building dams and storing water and doing maintenance with bushes and trees and all the other things that everyone else is doing in this country. They are worthless. Honestly, unless they show us otherwise [going to] Make some changes,” he added.
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