DEBT CEILING NEGOTIATIONS GRIND ON
Republicans accuse White House of ‘lack of urgency’
Debt ceiling talks showed few signs of outward progress Tuesday as negotiators for President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy traded more budgetcutting ideas but Republicans warned of a “lack of urgency” at the White House to resolve the standoff in time to avert a potentially chaotic federal default.
With barely a week to go before a deadline as soon as June 1, the Democratic president and the Republican speaker were staring down a financial crisis. Failure to strike a deal would be unprecedented, and certain to throw U.S. financial markets into turmoil, inflicting economic pain at home and abroad. Markets lowered Tuesday with no deal in sight.
“We’re not there yet,” McCarthy said at the Capitol, reiterating he won’t bring any bill forward “that doesn’t spend less than we spent this year.”
Behind closed doors, McCarthy urged his slim House Republican majority to “just stick together” despite their own factions as he negotiates the strongest deal possible for conservatives, said lawmakers exiting the private session.
McCarthy told reporters the teams are eyeing “creative” ways of rolling back spending that all sides can accept.
“I believe we can still get
there — and get there before June 1,” McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, said.
Dragging into a third week, the negotiations over raising the nation’s debt limit, now at $31 trillion, were never supposed to arrive at this point — a crisis in the making.
From the White House, press secretary Karine JeanPierre said it was “ridiculous” to suggest Biden wasn’t acting with urgency. “He wants to see this done as soon as possible,” she said.
The White House insisted
early on it was unwilling to barter over the need to pay the nation’s bills, demanding that Congress simply lift the ceiling as it has done many times before with no strings attached.
But the newly elected speaker urged the president at an Oval Office meeting in February to come to the negotiating table on a budget package that would cut spending to reduce ballooning deficits in the postCOVID era in exchange for the vote to allow future debt.
Both men said after a crucial meeting late Monday at the White House — after the president returned from the Group of Seven summit in Japan — that talks were productive.
But with time short to strike a deal, frustrations emerged as negotiators labored to come up with a compromise that could be approved quickly by the Republican House and the Democratic Senate and be signed into law.
Negotiations are focused
on finding agreement over a 2024 budget year limit. Republicans have set aside their demand to rollback spending to 2022 levels, but say that next year’s government spending must be less than it is now. But the White House instead is offering to freeze spending at current 2023 numbers.
Agreement on that topline spending level is vital. It would enable McCarthy to deliver spending restraint for conservatives while not being so severe that it would chase off the Democratic votes that would be needed in the divided Congress to pass any bill.
“We are holding firm to the speaker’s red line,” said a top Republican negotiator, Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana. “Which is that we will not do a deal unless it spends less money than we’re spending this year.”
Graves said Tuesday there were still “significant gaps” between his side and the White House.
The White House continues to argue that deficits can be reduced by ending tax breaks for wealthier households and some corporations, but McCarthy said he told the president at their February meeting that raising revenue from tax hikes is off the table.
The negotiators are now also debating the duration of a 1 percent cap on annual spending growth going forward, with Republicans dropping their demand for a 10-year cap to six years, but the White House offering only one year, for 2025.
Typically, the debt ceiling has been lifted for the duration of a budget deal, and in this negotiation the White House is angling for a twoyear agreement that would push past the presidential elections.
However, time is growing short. The House speaker promised lawmakers he will abide by the rule to post any bill for 72 hours before voting, making any action doubtful until the weekend — just days before the potential deadline. The Senate would also have to pass the package before it could go to Biden’s desk to be signed.