{"id":4854,"date":"2025-01-14T02:35:45","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T02:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/non-starter-california-democrats-blast-gops-fire-trade\/"},"modified":"2025-01-14T02:35:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T02:35:45","slug":"non-starter-california-democrats-blast-gops-fire-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/non-starter-california-democrats-blast-gops-fire-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Non-starter\u2019: California Democrats blast GOP\u2019s fire trade"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Democrats are rejecting a tentative pitch by House Republicans to attach wildfire aid to a federal debt limit increase.<\/p>\n

GOP lawmakers began floating the idea in meetings this weekend with incoming President Donald Trump. The thinking behind the plan, according to House Republicans, is that they\u2019ll need bipartisan support to raise the cap on federal borrowing authority in the coming months and that including assistance for fire-stricken Southern California would be an incentive for Democrats to help solve one of Trump\u2019s most pressing economic problems this year. <\/p>\n

But Democrats are refusing to entertain the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201dWhy would you be trying to link completely unrelated issues?\u201d California Rep. Ted Lieu<\/a>, vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in an interview. \u201cWe’ve always helped victims of disasters, and to leverage their pain and suffering on totally unrelated issues \u2014 that is inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The GOP\u2019s emerging gambit and Democrats\u2019 immediate resistance underscore the dilemma that Republicans face when it comes to raising the debt ceiling and preventing a U.S. default later this year. Hardline fiscal conservatives who have long balked at debt limit increases pose a huge hurdle for Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a>, where the narrow Republican majority leaves little room to advance legislation along party lines.<\/p>\n

“I appreciate Johnson telling everybody he doesn’t have the votes to raise the debt ceiling by telling us he wants to link it to disaster aid,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz,<\/a> a Florida Democrat, said in an interview. “If he wants to raise the debt ceiling, he’s going to have to talk to Democrats, not try to condition disaster aid.”<\/p>\n

Rep. Robert Garcia<\/a>, another California Democrat, said the idea is \u201ca non-starter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to oppose that vigorously,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cDisaster aid should never be tied to the debt ceiling, which I think is a crazy approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole<\/a> of Oklahoma said he raised the prospect of attaching fire aid to the debt limit with Trump and other House leaders at Mar-a-Lago this weekend. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe people that are able to vote for the appropriations bills probably would be more willing to be supportive of what you’re going to need in terms of resources out there,\u201d Cole said, referring to Democrats.<\/p>\n

Johnson confirmed Monday that it\u2019s being discussed as being part of the funding bill Congress must pass before March 14 to avoid a government shutdown. Johnson said he prefers to put \u201cconditions\u201d on disaster aid, further enraging Democrats.<\/p>\n

Moskowitz warned of the dangers of creating a new precedent in conditioning such aid: \u201cCongress is like high school: When one side breaks the norm, the other side will return the favor.\u201d<\/p>\n

House conservatives are raising their own doubts about the proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said we shouldn\u2019t have to negotiate with Democrats,\u201d Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris<\/a> of Maryland said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Harris wants Republicans to address the debt limit as part of a party-line budget reconciliation bill paired with deep spending cuts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats are rejecting a tentative pitch by House Republicans to attach wildfire aid to a federal debt limit increase. GOP lawmakers began floating the idea in meetings this weekend with incoming President Donald Trump. The thinking behind the plan, according to House Republicans, is that they\u2019ll need bipartisan support to raise the cap on federal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}