LEADERS MEET TODAY ON DEBT LIMIT
President, McCarthy, others will try to find framework for talks
The White House and Congress could strike a deal to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for budget cuts. Or they could agree to a stopgap measure to keep paying the nation’s bills while negotiations continue. They also could let the negotiations unravel, sending the economy into chaos.
As President Joe Biden meets today with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, RBakersfield, and other congressional leaders for the first time over the debt ceiling crisis, the options for easing out of the standoff are many.
But the political incentive for compromise is harder to come by. There’s no easy endgame ahead of a June 1 deadline to raise the debt ceiling or risk defaulting on the nation’s $31 trillion in debt.
“It’s Congress’ constitutional duty to act to prevent default,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. “That’s what the president is going to be very clear about.”
At today’s meeting, it’s extremely unlikely there will be any quick resolution. Biden and the big four congressional leaders of the House and Senate will convene at the White House with neither side yet signaling a willingness to budge off its opening position.
Biden wants Congress to raise the debt limit without any strings attached, while Republicans led by McCarthy
are insisting on budget cuts in exchange for any votes to allow more borrowing to pay the nation’s bills.
More likely, Biden and McCarthy will at least be able to set aside their differences enough to launch a process for negotiations that could begin to form the contours of a deal to avert a true debt ceiling crisis.
But with tensions high and the outcome uncertain, some lawmakers are considering unprecedented proposals, even one that would allow Biden to bypass Congress,
invoking his responsibilities under the 14th Amendment to simply raise the nation’s debt limit on his own. That would be certain to face a court challenge.
Though the endgame is uncertain, the political terrain is familiar for the White House and Congress. The once routine vote to raise the debt ceiling has increasingly been wielded as powerful political leverage to extract policy priorities that otherwise would not be likely to become law.
Republicans have put
down their opening bid — a sweeping House-passed proposal that would slash $4.8 trillion off the federal budget over a decade by rolling back spending to fiscal 2022 levels and capping future spending increases at 1 percent a year, resulting in steep cuts to programs and services.
The Republicans refuse to simply raise the debt limit on its own, and they’re demanding budget cuts and other party priorities. The House Republican-passed bill would drop millions of
Americans from health care, food stamps and cash assistance programs by imposing additional work requirements that many would be unable to meet. And it would undo much of Biden’s climate change agenda.
Senate Republicans are backing up their House Republican colleagues, announcing they will not advance “any bill that raises the debt ceiling without substantive spending and budget reforms.”
In a letter from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and signed by
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., 43 GOP senators said they are “united behind the House Republican conference in support of spending cuts and structural budget reform as a starting point for negotiations on the debt ceiling.”
Biden and Democrats have also dug in, refusing to debate over the debt ceiling — though they have opened the door to negotiations over spending levels as part of the regular budget process.
“We have to avoid default, period. Full stop,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said over the weekend.
“We, of course, are open to having a discussion about what type of investments, what type of spending, what type of revenues are appropriate,” Jeffries said. “That’s a process that is available to us right now.”
Time is short for any deal. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that come June 1, there may simply not be enough cash on hand to meet all of the nation’s obligations. She noted the U.S. has never defaulted on its debt.
“Every option is a bad option,” Yellen said Monday on CNBC.
The House and Senate arrive back at work today, but they are in session together just eight days before the Senate breaks for the Memorial Day recess the week of May 22 with the House set to recess the following week.
Both Biden and McCarthy have insisted they will not allow the country to default on its obligations.