Biden: Debt deal ‘very close’ even as two sides far apart
Work requirements for federal food aid recipients have emerged as a final sticking point in negotiations over the looming debt crisis, even as President Joe Biden said a deal is “very close.”
Biden’s optimism, in comments to reporters as he left the White House on Friday evening, came as the deadline for a potentially catastrophic default was pushed back to June 5 and seemed likely to drag negotiations between the White House and Republicans over raising the debt ceiling into another frustrating week.
House negotiators departed the Capitol after 2 a.m. Saturday without a deal. They were expected to return hours later in hopes of reaching agreementwith thewhite House over the holiday weekend.
Both sides have suggested one of themain holdups is a GOP effort to expand existing work requirements for recipients of food stamps and other federal aid programs, a longtime Republican goal that Democrats have strenuously opposed.
Even as they came closer to a framework on spending, each side seemed dug in on the work requirements. White House spokesman Andrew Bates called the GOP proposals “cruel and senseless” and said Biden and Democrats would stand against them.
Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves, one of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s negotiators, was blunt when asked if Republicans might relent on the issue: “Hell no, not a chance.”
The later “X- date, “laid out in a letter from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, set the risk of a devastating default four days beyond an earlier estimate. Still, Americans and the world uneasily watched the negotiating brinkmanship that could throwthe U.S. economy into chaos and sap world confidence in the nation’s leadership.
Yet Biden was upbeat as he departed for Camp David: “It’s very close, and I’m optimistic.”
Failure to lift the borrowing limit, now $31 trillion, to pay the nation’s incurred bills, would send shockwaves through the U. S. and global economy. In a blunt warning, Yellen said failure to act by the new date would “cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests.”
Anxious retirees andotherswere already making contingency plans for missed checks, with the next Social Security payments due next week.
Biden and Mccarthy, R- Calif., have seemed to be narrowing on a two-year budget-slashing deal that would also extend the debt limit into 2025 past the next presidential election. The contours of the deal have been taking shape to cut spending for 2024 and impose a 1% cap on spending growth for 2025.
But talks over the proposedwork requirements for recipients ofmedicaid, food stamps and other aid programs seemed at a standstill Friday afternoon.
Biden has said the work requirements for Medicaid would be a nonstarter. But he initially seemed potentially open to negotiating minor changes on food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
The Republican proposal would save $11 billion over 10 years by raising the maximum age for existing standards that require ablebodied adults who do not live with dependents towork or attend training programs. While current law applies those standards to recipients under the age of 50, the Republican plan would raise the age to include adults 55 and under. It would also decrease the number of exemptions that states can grant to some recipients subject to those requirements.
Biden’s position on the SNAP work requirements appeared to have hardened by Friday, when spokesman Bates said House Republicans are threatening to trigger an unprecedented recession “unless they can take food out of the mouths of hungry Americans.”