Tallahassee Sun

On Friday, President Joe Biden signed the debt ceiling bill into law following weeks of negotiations. Congressman Neal Dunn appeared as a guest on the podcast Breaking Battlegrounds with Sam Stone and Chuck Warren, where he discussed his vote in support of the debt ceiling bill.

The debt ceiling bill has gained significant attention recently, particularly after the Treasury Department projected that the federal government's funds would be completely depleted by June 5 if the debt ceiling was not raised, according to CNBC.

"It's why the job can be difficult" Dunn said. "You know, this this first off, we should say this bill really does cut the spending. So, President Biden had come forth with a budget, and we went after that budget to say, we've got to this is way too much. It's the kind of budget that caused the inflation that we're suffering with. And so, we managed. I say 'we' you know, and actually the credit should go to Speaker McCarthy and the negotiation team led by Garret Graves. And they just did a brilliant job getting the, getting that number down by 4.8 trillion, with a T, trillion dollars over the ten year window. And so that that's a big save. There has never been a cut on the president's budget, anything like that big, in history."

Following weeks of negotiations, President Joe Biden signed the debt ceiling bill into law on Friday. The bill successfully passed the Senate with a 63-36 margin late Thursday, after it previously cleared the House with a vote of 314-117 on Wednesday. The primary objective of the bill is to suspend the debt limit until Jan. 1, 2025, while also implementing restrictions on government spending. As a result, the nation's debt limit has now reached $31.4 trillion, CBS reports.

"And, you know, we used to say a million, a million a year, but now it's trillions," Dunn said on the Breaking Battlegrounds episode. "You're right. It's it's it is additional money. Now, let's let's not kid ourselves. This is just a first step because the debt is still going to glide somewhat higher over the next ten years it's going to be increased. There's still but we're still going to be borrowing money. We're still going to be facing a, you know, this situation where we're spending more than we're bringing in, and we have to go after that, too. But we really got some good wins on this bill. One of the things that should appeal to everybody was we we kept the IRS from getting any more new wages this year or next. And then, of course, we'll have to fight that in the 20 in the 25 appropriations process again. But bearing in mind, we only control one, the House, not the Senate."

Dunn went on to tout the parts of the budget that he protected.

"This is really a remarkable bill given the the sort of weak hand that we had to play," Dunn said. "And so, I was actually, you know, you could always wish for more. My God, yes, you could wish for more. But we did manage to protect the defense budget entirely. So, we plussed it up from the president and we get this is no time to cut on the military. We got too many threats around the world right now. And we also kept the veterans intact. But everybody else took a little bath."