Senate

Scott, Rosendale throw support behind McCarthy’s debt limit plan

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) speaks to a reporter as he arrives to the Senate Chamber for a vote regarding a nomination on Wednesday, March 15, 2023.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) joined Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), a key vote in the House, Wednesday in voicing strong support for Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) proposal to raise the debt limit and cut spending.

Scott, who chaired the Senate Republican campaign arm in 2022, and Rosendale said it’s time “to end the tyranny flowing out of Washington by ending the reign of bureaucrats in the executive branch who are currently undermining Congress” through regulations empowered by the Inflation Reduction Act and other bills passed by the Democratic Congress in 2021 and 2022.”

“The Republican solution to America’s debt ceiling problem is to return power back to where it belongs: with the American people,” they wrote in a joint Fox News op-ed.

“The proposal released by Speaker McCarthy won’t be popular with the Washington elites that have gotten rich in decades of government waste, but it is being totally embraced by the American people who are fed up with Congress not being accountable to them,” they wrote.

They took aim at Biden’s budget proposal to Congress, which they argued would add up to nearly $4.8 trillion in new taxes, including a $37 billion tax increase on domestic energy producers.

Scott is emerging as one of the most vocal proponents in the Senate for attaching major spending reforms to debt-limit legislation.

Rosendale’s support for McCarthy’s plan is significant because he was previously viewed as one of the swing votes the Speaker needed to muster 218 votes required to pass it.

Rosendale initially opposed McCarthy’s bid to become Speaker in January.

But on Wednesday he and Scott hailed McCarthy’s leadership.

“The truth is that there is a strong, conservative Republican Party all across America that is demanding action to put our nation back on a path to fiscal sanity,” they wrote.