Conservative firebrand Matt Gaetz declares Dems big winners in debt ceiling fight

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Wednesday declared Democrats the winners in the debt ceiling fight.

The far-right congressman who made headlines last week by saying his Republican colleagues “don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage,” on Wednesday said his party would have been better off allowing the clean debt limit increase that Democrats and some moderate Republicans sought.

Gaetz during an appearance on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight said the debt limit deal will promote renewal energy at the expense of fossil fuels, a policy he and other members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus oppose.

“I would suggest that this legislation might actually be worse than a clean debt limit increase, because if you lash the permitting reform that establishment Republicans are championing to the Green New Deal tax credits that now Joe Biden gets to cement in and extend for years, that actually what you're going to be accelerating, permitting on more wind farms, more solar, and that is going to distort the energy market more and make the problems worse that people sent us here to solve,” Gaetz said.

Gaetz explained that his break with congressional allies such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who supported the debt ceiling deal, involved a dispute over tactics.

“Well, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, and I share the same goals, but we have very different views regarding the tactics. Taking a 99 percent continuing resolution off of current spending levels, is giving the Democrats a massive win, Rob, that would be like me gaining 50 pounds and saying that's okay, because I'm going to take a walk to the ice cream store on the following day,” Gaetz said.

“That's how the Democrats have iced in the terrible policy choices of Joe Biden and the two principal dynamics happening right now around this bill, Democrats are moving toward it, and Republicans are moving away from it. That's because so many of the claims are illusions, like the work requirements claim. We just got an analysis fact from the Congressional Budget Office that after this bill passes, an additional 74,000 people every month will be eligible and enrolling in the SNAP program."

“That is a huge expansion of the very programs that we're trying to constrain and make more effective.”