The Hill News

Without Tea Party Republicans, Congress wouldn't be cutting any federal spending, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.

"What I would say to our friends in the Tea Party movement â€" without them we wouldn't be having this discussion. We wouldn't be cutting anything," McConnell said Monday to Neil Cavuto on Fox News. "But for the last election, we wouldn't be having this discussion."

McConnell's comments come a few weeks after he unveiled his fallback debt-ceiling increase proposal that gave President Obama broad authority to raise the spending limit and simultaneously make it more difficult for Congress to stop him. McConnell's plan was met with criticism from Tea Party conservatives.

On Sunday, Obama, McConnell and other congressional leaders signed off on a debt-limit-increase deal that would cut federal deficits by $2.1 trillion over 10 years, raising the ceiling by an equal amount. The deal also creates a bicameral 12! -person committee charged with making further recommendations to reduce the deficit. McConnell said that that committee was unlikely to agree to tax hikes of any kind, despite the presence of Democrats on the committee.

"What I can pretty certainly say to the American people, the chances of any kind of tax increase passing with the appointees that [Speaker] John Boehner [(R-Ohio)] and I are going to put on there are pretty low," McConnell said. "In addition to that, let's assume that they did. It would have to pass the House and the Senate. I don't think this House of Representatives would pass a tax increase. So I'm comfortable we're not going to raise taxes coming out of this joint committee."

Earlier on Monday, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) left open the possibility that the committee could actually support tax increases.

"Everything is on the table if a majority of the committee chooses to have it on the table," Conrad said on Bloomberg T.V. "In other words, what the Republicans are saying is that they're tied into the [Congressional Budget Office] current baseline, they think that prevents revenue. But if they read the fine print they'll find that the majority of the committee could choose some other baseline."