Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has announced that he will wear a debt clock to President Biden’s State of the Union address.
Massie stated that he was backing an initiative by Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to wear debt clocks in order to emphasize the surging U.S. national debt.
“Say what you will about him, but George Santos had a good idea,” Massie told Roll Call. “He said we should all wear one to the State of Union.”
Consequently, Massie created a custom-built debt clock by adding 500 lines of code to a Arduino ESP32 microcontroller, and programming it to display the U.S. national debt.
He stated that his intention was to apply pressure to his fellow members of Congress in order to get them to consider cuts to the immense annual U.S. spending.
“My design specification was to instill anxiety among my colleagues,” Massie said. “And it’s hit the mark.”
Massie has called for a 1% across the board spending cut, noting that selective cuts to entitlements such as Medicare and social security would likely be unacceptable to the general public.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) remains locked in negotiations with President Joe Biden over raising the debt ceiling. Unlike certain other conservative House Republicans such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Massie supported McCarthy’s re-election bid, noting that there were no other viable alternatives for the position, given that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was not considering a bid.
