JOE TO GOP: ‘GET OUT OF THE WAY’
Mitch fires back: Not gonna help on debt limit
President Biden ripped Republicans on Monday over their blanket resistance to raising the country’s debt ceiling, accusing lawmakers of recklessly forsaking their responsibilities.
“Not only are Republicans refusing to do their job, they’re threatening to use their power to prevent us from doing our job — saving the economy from a catastrophic event,” Biden said in remarks from the State Dining Room of the White House. “I think quite frankly it’s hypocritical, dangerous and disgraceful.”
The U.S. borrowing cap presently sits at $28.4 trillion, and experts have predicted potentially calamitous consequences if America doesn’t lift it this month.
Last Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Congress that if the limit isn’t increased by Oct. 18, when the government believes it will run out of money, “our country would likely face a financial crisis and economic recession.”
But Republicans dug in opposing a quick lift last week, despite the dangers of federal coffers soon running dry.
On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused the Democrats of having attempted a “partisan” jam by attaching a debt limit increase to a funding bill to keep the government open. Congress passed legislation to avert a shutdown, but left the more dangerous debt issue hanging in the balance.
“We’re able to fund the government today because the majority accepted reality,” McConnell said last week. “The same thing will need to happen on the debt limit.”
The president voiced frustrations as a once-procedural custom fell victim to political maneuvering. And he called out his presidential predecessor, Donald Trump, saying that the previous White House added almost $8 trillion to the national debt over four years of “reckless tax and spending policies.”
Republicans repeatedly raised the cap under Trump. And Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, deployed a bar graph at her news briefing on Monday to show the yawning gap between the debt increases incurred under Trump and Biden. The eight-month-old administration accepted blame for $676 billion, and pegged $7.8 trillion to Trump.
In his remarks, Biden ticked off possible costs if action isn’t taken soon: Lost jobs, depleted benefits for retirees and veterans, and vanishing salaries for service members.
“If we’re going to make good on what’s already been approved by previous Congresses, and previous presidents and parties, we have to pay for it,” the president said. “Raising the debt limit is usually a bipartisan undertaking. And it should be.”
Moody’s Analytics, a financial analysis firm, estimated in a report last month that a U.S. default could lead to the loss of 6 million jobs and $15 trillion in household wealth.
Biden said Democrats don’t expect Republicans to join them in voting for a lift to the borrowing limit. But he pleaded with
GOP leaders not to put up procedural roadblocks.
Republicans have employed a filibuster to block the Democrats’ plans, an escalation in the partisan warfare that has recently enveloped changes to the debt cap.
“A meteor is headed to crash into our economy,” Biden said.
“Democrats are willing to do all the work stopping it. Republicans just have to let us do our job. Just get out of the way.”
He claimed Republicans are playing “Russian roulette.”
In a letter to Biden dated Monday, McConnell said that bipartisanship is “not a light switch” that Democrats can turn on and off, declaring that “since your party wants to govern alone, it must handle the debt limit alone.”
He also pointed at the president’s own votes against lifting the borrowing limit during President George W. Bush’s administration, saying that Biden’s “view then is our view now.”
McConnell grumbled that it was up to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to figure out a way to pump the debt limit higher without running to his party for assistance.
“Republicans will not build Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer a shortcut around procedural hurdles they can clear on their own,” McConnell wrote.
“Either the Democratic leaders simply cannot govern or they would rather play chicken with the U.S. economy than accept reality.”
But Biden insisted the Democrats need McConnell’s help. And the president bluntly told reporters that he couldn’t promise that the U.S. would dodge a ruinous collision with the debt ceiling.
“That’s up to Mitch McConnell,” he said. “Can I guarantee it? If I could, I would. But I can’t.”
Schumer said in a Monday letter to lawmakers that McConnell’s obstruction could force them to work into the weekend, and that legislation to lift the cap needs to be passed days ahead of the Oct. 18 deadline outlined by Yellen, given the risk to the nation’s economy.
“Let me be clear about the task ahead of us: We must get a bill to the President’s desk dealing with the debt limit by the end of the week,” Schumer wrote.
“Period. We do not have the luxury of waiting.”