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McCarthy: ‘No promises’ yet after meeting Biden
Speaker says talks about nation’s debt limit will continue
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met face-to-face Wednesday for more than an hour of highly anticipated spending talks — “a good first meeting,” the new Republican leader said — but expectations were low for significant progress as GOP lawmakers push for steep budget cuts in a deal to prevent a national debt limit crisis.
Biden has resisted direct spending negotiations linked to vital action raising the nation’s legal debt ceiling, warning against potentially throwing the economy into chaos. But the Republican leader all but invited himself to the White House to start the conversation before a summer debt deadline. McCarthy emerged saying the two had agreed to meet again.
“No agreement, no promises except we will continue this conversation,” McCarthy told reporters outside the White House.
“We both have different perspectives on this, but I thought this was a good meeting,” he said.
The House speaker arrived for the afternoon session carrying no formal GOP budget proposal, but he is laden with the promises he made to far-right and other conservative Republican lawmakers during his difficult campaign to become House speaker. He vowed then to work to return federal spending to 2022 levels — an 8% reduction. He also promised to take steps to balance the budget within the decade — an ambitious, if politically unattainable goal.
McCarthy said he told the president, “I would like to see if we can come to an agreement long before the deadline.”
The stakes were high for both leaders, who have a cordial relationship, and for the nation as they worked to prevent a debt default. But it was doubtful this first meeting since the embattled McCarthy won the speaker’s gavel would yield quick results.
“Everyone is asking the same question of Speaker McCarthy: Show us your plan. Where is your plan, Republicans?” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ahead of the afternoon meeting.
The nation is heading toward a fiscal showdown over raising the debt ceiling, a once-routine vote in Congress that has taken on outsized significance over the past decade as the nation’s debt toll mounts. Newly empowered in the majority, House Republicans want to force Biden and Senate Democrats into budget cuts as part of a deal to raise the limit.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified Congress in January that the government was reaching the limit of its borrowing capacity, $31.4 trillion, with congressional approval needed to raise the ceiling to allow more debt to pay off the nation’s already accrued bills. While Yellen was able to launch “extraordinary measures” to cover the bills temporarily, that funding is to run out in June.
Ahead of the White House meeting, House Republicans met in private early Wednesday to discuss policies.
McCarthy met with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on Tuesday at the Capitol.
McConnell has a history of dealmaking with Biden during the last debt ceiling showdown a decade ago. But the GOP leader of the Senate, in the minority party, says it’s up to McCarthy and the president to come up with a deal acceptable to the new House majority.
Slashing the federal budget is often easier said than done, as past budget deals have shown.
After a 2011 debt ceiling standoff, Republicans and Democrats agreed to across-the-board federal budget caps on domestic and defense spending that were supposed to be in place for 10 years but ultimately proved too much to bear.
McCarthy said over the weekend he would not be proposing any reductions to the Social Security and Medicare programs that are primarily for older Americans, but other Republicans want cuts to those as part of overall belt-tightening.
Such programs, along with the Medicaid health care system, make up the bulk of federal spending and are politically difficult to cut, particularly with a growing population of those in need of services.
After Wednesday morning’s closed-door House GOP briefing, several Republican lawmakers insisted they would not allow the negotiations to spiral into a debt crisis.
“Obviously, we don’t want to default on our debt. We’re not going to,” said Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio. “But we are going to have to have a discussion about the trajectory that we’re on. Everyone knows that it’s not sustainable.”
Agreeing on the size and scope of the GOP’s proposed cuts will be a tall order for McCarthy as he struggles to build consensus within his House Republican majority.