'These reckless fiscal policies are dead on arrival here in the Senate,' said Chuck Schumer. Dems: GOP rules will cost $1 trillion

Top Senate Democrats fired a shot across the Capitol on Thursday, warning that new rules passed by the Republican-controlled House a day earlier would actually “balloon” the deficit by $1 trillion.

Republicans, who formally took control of the lower chamber Wednesday vowing a renewed focus on deficit reduction, want to permanently extend estate and income tax cuts for millionaires, give businesses new tax breaks and repeal the health care law — all things that Democrats say will increase the deficit.


“They want to do all this — very nice — but they want to charge it all to Uncle Sam’s credit card,” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who heads policy and messaging for Senate Democrats, said at a news conference. “They don’t want to pay for it.”

The dig is the latest in a string of attacks from Senate Democrats against GOP House members in the first two days of the new Congress, setting up a fight across chambers, rather than with Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate.

McConnell spokesman John Ashbrook said Democrats are more interested in raising taxes on Americans.

“A 30-minute press conference on the importance of raising taxes was not something most Americans we’re looking for last November,” Ashbrook said.

A Democratic budget analysis, based on figures from the Joint Committee on Taxation and Congressional Budget Office, found that new GOP House rules would swell the deficit by $1.07 trillion. A CBO report out Thursday revealed that repealing the health care law would increase the deficit by $230 billion through 2021.

Schumer, flanked by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), said GOP efforts to pare back the budget, including cuts to staff salaries, pale in comparison with the amount they would add to the deficit. And he declared that the Democratic-led Senate would oppose Republican policies at every turn.

“We’re here today to say these reckless fiscal policies are dead on arrival here in the Senate,” Schumer said. “We’re here to assure everyone that, don’t worry, these things won’t happen because we’re here, and we’re responsible.”

Michael Steel, a spokesman for newly installed House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said in passing the new rules, “Republicans have listened to the American people.”

“They want us to cut government spending to help grow our economy — and we will,” Steel said. “The question is whether congressional Democrats will join us or whether they will ignore the people and continue to press for more tax hikes and more ineffective ‘stimulus’ spending.”