Global Courant 2023-05-23 03:55:55
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said he was “optimistic” about progress as he sat down with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Monday afternoon to discuss a path forward to a debt limit infringement.
With just days to go until the Treasury Department may be unable to pay the nation’s bills, the urgency is mounting for Biden and McCarthy, R-Calif., to find a way to break the loan limit. of the government to increase.
“We are optimistic that we may be able to make some progress,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office ahead of the meeting, before reiterating that defaulting is not an option.
“The American people would get a real kick in their economic well-being,” Biden said. “In fact, the rest of the world would too.”
When asked if a deal on total spending could break the impasse, Biden said “that alone” would not be enough.
The two sides agreed that reducing the deficit is a priority, he said, but disagreed on spending cuts and measures to increase revenues.
“We will — we still have some disagreements, but I think maybe we can get where we need to go,” Biden said.
“We have differences of opinion,” McCarthy said, adding that revenues had grown. But the speaker said he and Biden “both agree that we need to change the trajectory, that our debt is too great.”
McCarthy has said he is pushing for an agreement to “spend less” than current levels in a deal, though he was mum when asked if the total amount would be anywhere between this year and the 2022 fiscal level. McCarthy drew a line against military spending cuts ahead of the meeting with Biden: “I don’t think you should endanger America. It’s off the table for me.”
One of the biggest questions surrounding the high-stakes meeting is whether Biden and McCarthy can strike a deal that has the votes to pass the Republican-led House and Democratic-controlled Senate in a short time. And if a bill passes with overwhelmingly Democratic votes in the House, McCarthy will face an uprising from his hardline members. A push for sharper cuts has become a source of tension within the Republican caucus, as some conservatives fear McCarthy may be willing to cut a deal with Biden that doesn’t go far enough.
A White House official said earlier Monday that a “reasonable compromise” is still achievable, despite the obstacles in reaching an agreement that both sides can agree on. The hope is that Biden and McCarthy can come to an agreement on spending, the official said.
While sitting with Biden on Monday, McCarthy said he hoped they would find “common grounds” for a deal that would lift the cap while working to curb inflation, reduce dependence on China and make it work of the congressional spending process.
The speaker previously said that “decisions need to be made in a timely manner” to avoid a crisis, and that he understands that Republicans “don’t control the Senate and we don’t control the presidency.”
On Biden’s way back Sunday from the G-7 summit in Japan, he had a phone call with McCarthy that the speaker described Monday as “very productive” and a request from the president to meet.
The meeting follows a frenetic few days of staff-level negotiations between the White House and Republican leaders just 10 days before the Treasury Department’s June 1 deadline for Congress to act or risk the first-ever bankruptcy of the American debt.
White House negotiators returned from talks on Capitol Hill to brief Biden in person before meeting with McCarthy, a White House official said.
Biden spoke on the state of negotiations in Hiroshima, Japan, on Sunday, arguing that Republicans’ “extreme positions” were hindering progress.
“I’ve done my part,” Biden told reporters. “Now it is time for the other side to move. There are more extreme positions, because much of what they have already proposed is simply, quite frankly, unacceptable.”
McCarthy reiterated Monday that he will adhere to the 72-hour rule, which gives members time to read new legislation between its release and when it is voted on, and said he therefore hoped for a deal over the weekend.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., adjourned the chamber last week for a pre-scheduled recess, but told senators to be ready to return within 24 hours’ notice.
Negotiations have reached turbulence in recent days over the core dispute over how much the federal government should spend the next fiscal year. McCarthy and the Republicans want a substantial cut that the Democrats are reluctant to allow. Democrats calculate that Republicans are proposing discretionary cuts from 22% if military programs are exempted, as many in the GOP want.
Arriving at the Capitol on Monday morning, Rep. Patrick McHenry, RN.C., an ally of McCarthy, told reporters that the call between the speaker and Biden on Sunday was “productive” and that “it brought us back together in the room. ”
McCarthy will also have to deal with the demands of conservative hardliners in his narrow majority, who are pushing for tighter spending cuts and say the bill passed by the House, dubbed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, should be the standard they must live by. hold a deal.
Biden is facing fear from his party’s left over his granting of some GOP demands, such as stricter job requirements for federal aid programs. Many progressives, uncomfortable with the negotiations, have called on the president to invoke the 14th Amendment and unilaterally tackle the debt ceiling.
“I look at the 14th Amendment to see whether or not we have the authority. I think we have the authority,” Biden said at a news conference in Hiroshima on Sunday. “The question is, could it be made and invoked in time that could not or would not be appealed, and as a result would exceed the due date and still default on the debt? That is a question that I think is unresolved.”
Biden said that after making progress in negotiations, the Republicans backed out with “a proposal that was very cut back on where they agreed or discussed.”
“And now I don’t know where — we’ve made another counter-proposal at the desk,” the president said on Sunday. “I know this sounds ridiculous, but that’s what we did. And I await the response to what we have offered.”
Biden said Republicans have ruled out revenue-boosting measures or tax hikes, another source of contention, which he said Democrats were watching. As Biden sat down with McCarthy on Monday, the president said he wanted to close the “tax loopholes.”
Biden seemed less confident this weekend that Republicans would do whatever it took to avoid a default, warning that “he cannot guarantee” that the Republicans will not force a situation where the administration is unable to pay its bills. pay.
But the president said Monday that he and McCarthy had discussed “the need for a bipartisan agreement” that could be passed by either chamber.
“We need to be in a position to sell it to our constituencies,” Biden said. “We are quite well divided in the House, almost in the middle. And the Senate is no different. So we need to get something that we can sell to both sides.”
