Greetings,

Late last night, the Senate convened to take up legislation to once again suspend the debt ceiling, which is a cap on the nation’s overall borrowing limit. While there had been much fear mongering about potential default, this so-called “default” never would have been on the table had Biden simply given the public assurances that the United States would never fail to pay its debt obligations. The necessity and urgency behind passing this bill was fabricated by the Biden administration and their excessive scare tactics.

I voted “No” on the bill and here’s why: While there were some good elements to this deal, such as reclaiming some unspent Covid-19 emergency funds for a national pandemic that Biden and Congress have both agreed is over, there were also a lot of aspects that were disappointing. I did not like the fact this agreement failed to include greater efforts to curb spending, and I was frustrated this agreement will end up adding so much more to the debt in exchange for relatively few spending cuts. House Republicans initially asked for a return to the funding levels we had in December 2022, just six months ago, before Congress passed its last big spending bill. Instead, the White House refused, and Congress is locking in excessive spending levels that will continue to fuel inflation and keep us on the current reckless fiscal path that we are on. This means the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents remains largely untouched, and a host of pork-barrel projects that will increase spending by nearly $4 trillion will continue. I simply could not support a debt limit deal that continues the same reckless spending that has produced record inflation, slowed our economic recovery, and which has caused immense harm to families in Texas and across America.

Last week, I joined Sean Hannity, Larry Kudlow, and Rob Finnerty to discuss this deal as it was coming together. Click below to see the highlights.

“A responsible president would stand up and look the American people in the eye and say, ‘Hear me clearly: America will never, ever, ever default on our debt.’ The way you do that, regardless of what happens with the debt ceiling, is every month the federal government takes in substantially more in tax revenue than interest on the debt.”

“Look, Biden was saying he wouldn't talk. He wouldn't negotiate. The only thing he would take was a clean debt ceiling increase. And that was objectively unreasonable and quickly became untenable.”

“I hope and believe we will end up with some real positive steps to rein in the lunatic spending that's in Washington.”

In the state these past couple weeks, Sen. Cornyn and I started accepting applications for judicial vacancies in El Paso and McAllen. Read more here. The U.S. Border Patrol celebrated their 99th anniversary on May 28th. Read my statement here. I joined 38 colleagues in introducing Back the Blue in support of our law enforcement community. Read more here. I introduced a bipartisan bill to expand the economically critical Starr-Camargo Bridge with Sens. Cornyn and Kelly. Read about that here.

Rest assured, I will always lead the fight for jobs, freedom, and security. God bless you all.

Keep Texas Strong,

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