GOP senators insist Biden ‘will negotiate’ on debt ceiling, budget reform: ‘Better to start now’

Republican senators had a message for President Joe Biden while addressing the national debt and quickly approaching debt ceiling deadline during a Wednesday press conference: He “will negotiate.”

“President Biden needs to know, absolutely he will negotiate, and it’s better to start now,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told reporters, pushing back on the Biden administration’s stance that the talks surrounding the debt ceiling are “not a negotiation.”

Paul added that the greatest security threat to the nation is the debt and that no conservatives and no Republicans in the House of Representatives will vote to raise the debt ceiling “without significant budget reform.”

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The growing U.S. national debt stands at $31.4 trillion while the federal government’s annual budget is currently operating at $6.3 trillion, nearly $2 trillion more than what it spent annually prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the U.S. will need to raise the debt ceiling by June in order to avoid “irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans and global financial stability.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who spoke immediately before Paul, called Biden’s position on the debt ceiling “unreasonable and ridiculous” and vowed that the Republican conferences in both houses of Congress will use every possible “lever point” to stop the massive spending contributing to the rising debt and historic inflation plaguing the nation.

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“We are at a moment in time, because the American people elected a Republican majority in the House, where we have an opportunity to stop the madness. And I believe it is incumbent on that Republican majority, and on the Republicans in the Senate, to use every lever point we have to stop the out-of-control spending that is driving inflation, that is punishing hard-working Americans across this country,” Cruz said.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, stands alongside his…