Florida Representative Matt Gaetz on Tuesday questioned Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s statement about the United States’ deadline for a debt default.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress are currently engaged in a heated back-and-forth over raising the U.S. debt limit, which the House Republican majority has refused to support with considerable spending cut agreements from Democrats and President Joe Biden. Reaching the debt limit would result in the country defaulting on its debts for the first time in history, which experts say would cause catastrophic damage to the global economy.
Biden has said that, while he is willing to negotiate over spending cuts, he will not allow the debt limit to be used as a bargaining tool. Republicans have reportedly ruled out cuts to defense spending, Social Security, and Medicare, as well as the prospect of raising taxes for the wealthy.
Democrats claimed that these parameters would then leave things like food, housing, and education programs on the chopping block. Republicans countered that cuts are needed to rein in recent spending from Democrats.
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Yellen has stated that the deadline for the U.S. to avoid a default crisis will likely come as soon as June 1.
“With an additional week of information now available, I am writing to note that we estimate that it is highly likely that Treasury will no longer be able to satisfy all of the government’s obligations if Congress has not acted to raise or suspend the debt limit by early June, and potentially as early as June 1,” Yellen wrote in a letter to Congress on Monday.
Gaetz, a Republican representing Florida’s 1st Congressional District, pushed back against Yellen’s warnings while speaking to reporters on Tuesday, saying that she needed to “show her work” for how she determined the deadline.
“I don’t believe that the first of the month is a real deadline, Gaetz said. “Like, I don’t understand why we’re not making Janet Yellen show her work.”
While Yellen has referred to early June as a “hard deadline” in some statements, she has continually raised June 1 as merely a possibility. The treasury secretary previously said that a deadline would not be clear until after the end of tax season.
In response to an inquiry, a spokesperson for Gaetz directed Newsweek to a recent tweet from the congressman.
“Invite Yellen to prove to your committee that June 1 is truly the deadline for ‘default,'” Gaetz wrote. “We shouldn’t just take her word on it after she blew the call on: [inflation, interest rates, and bank failures]. I think her ouija board may be broken.”
Gaetz previously stated that he would not support a debt limit raise without adding work requirements for Americans who receive certain forms of public assistance. The current requirements for SNAP benefits call for recipients to work roughly 20 hours a week, with the congressman arguing that it should be raised to 30.
Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Treasury’s press office via email for comment.