GOP Rep. Burgess warns interest on national debt will raise price tag of Biden's $1.9T stimulus plan

Burgess also says Democrats are seeking an additional $1.9 trillion in stimulus funding while $1 trillion of previously appropriated stimulus funds remain unspent.
Rep. Burgess
By Nicholas Ballasy

Texas Republican Rep. Michael Burgess, a member of the House Rules Committee, warned Friday that the interest on the national debt will raise the price tag of President Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus plan.

Burgess said the Democrats are seeking the additional $1.9 trillion in stimulus funding while $1 trillion of previously appropriated stimulus funds remain unspent.

"Are interest rates going to stay low over the next 10 years? Well, not if we do deficit spending like we're doing right now, you could expect that interest rates will go up. So that interest charge at the very end of the bill is likely to be much larger than what they've posted on the expected 10th year expenditure," Burgess said, referring to Biden's stimulus plan, during an interview on "Just the News AM."

The interest on the debt was $376 billion in 2020 and is projected to rise in 2021.

The Congress passed the $2 trillion CARES Act last March as well as a $900 billion stimulus bill in December with votes from Republicans and Democrats.

"At the end of the year, there was a big compromise bill, it had $900 billion in it for coronavirus relief; there's a trillion dollars that's unspent in those funds between all the bills we passed last March and April, and the one in December. There has been ample dollars pushed out the door," Burgess told show host Nick Ballasy.

"The question now is how, if there is indeed additional aid that's needed, let's figure out where it's needed to go but this reconciliation structure that they've pushed through allows for $1.9 trillion of deficit spending but actually, the upper limit is much higher than that because there are some things that are quite malleable, like the interest on the debt," he also said.

Reconciliation refers to the budget process the Democrats have approved as a way to pass Biden's stimulus proposal without GOP votes. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican, told Just the News on Monday that reconciliation has not been used for a stimulus bill in the past.