Global Courant 2023-05-12 16:00:00
WASHINGTON — House and Senate lawmakers left the Capitol this week with no agreement on how to avoid catastrophic debt. But facing a deadline just three weeks away, some said they are starting to see small signs of progress.
A Friday meeting between President Joe Biden and the four congressional leaders was postponed until next week to allow their top aides to make more progress before bringing back key negotiators, who first met on Tuesday.
And lawmakers and aides alike said the solution to meet both parties’ redline — Democrats insist they won’t negotiate to pay debt the U.S. has already incurred, while Republicans demand spending cuts — parallel negotiations could are those that link an increase in the debt limit to a budget agreement.
With the debt limit raised to avoid economic catastrophe, the GOP could claim that the Democrats have pulled out of the no-negotiation stance and the Democrats can claim some victories in the budget talks and focus on them.
A potential bipartisan deal would “take over the budget negotiations and kind of mix it up with the debt ceiling raise,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., a member of the budget committee charged with selecting key spending figures for the government each year. and from the Credit Committee, which distributes that financing. “Ultimately, we have to fund the government,” he noted.
“Maybe they can agree on some top lines that would show some fiscal restraint and raise the debt ceiling, but we’ll get there,” Graham said.
There is a tight timeline; the Treasury Department says the US will default for the first time on June 1 unless Congress raises the borrowing limit.
Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., spoke to reporters at a briefing Thursday about four policy areas where Biden and Republicans could strike a deal: recovering unused Covid relief funds, reviewing the permitting process for infrastructure and energy projects, establishing spending limits on upcoming government funding bills and increasing job requirements for participants in some safety net programs.
“I think there’s a pretty good opportunity there,” said Graves, a top ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who helped draft the House-passed GOP debt ceiling package.
Rep. Dusty Johnson, RS.D., called the four areas the “lowest hanging fruit” supported by Republicans and “common sense Democrats” alike.
“The White House has said all these Republican questions are nonstarters. They will say that they will not accept anything. We know they will,” said Johnson, the chairman of the Republican Main Street Caucus, which calls itself a group of pragmatic lawmakers.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a centrist Democrat who has a major swing vote, said he would support allowing reform—a long-held priority of his—with a debt ceiling package.
“I take it everywhere. We’re working to get it,” he said. “This should be a bipartisan reform bill.”
Yet that is easier said than done. Many of the proposals face obstacles to win the support of a divided Congress.
A wild card in the already tense impasse is former President Donald Trump, the de facto leader of the Republican Party and its front-runner for the 2024 presidential nomination, who this week added fuel to the fire by encouraging an unprecedented bankruptcy unless the Democrats surrender to conservative policy demands and spending cuts.
Biden and Democratic leaders who control the Senate remain adamant that Congress lift the debt ceiling without strings attached and that all negotiations be specific to the federal budget.
They are also trying to put pressure on the GOP by calling attention to Trump’s comments about CNN downplaying a standard. But McCarthy — a Trump ally who has worked to stay in his good graces — is not budging on his refusal to extend the debt limit without conditions, even though he says he doesn’t want the country to default.
Democrats remain equally adamant.
“We are going to achieve a clean debt ceiling. We will avoid default. And we engage in conversations about budget and spending and the right way forward. That is my sincere hope,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a Biden ally who holds his longtime Senate seat, told NBC News Thursday.
“It was dangerous and irresponsible for former President Trump to casually say last night, ‘Um, go ahead and just default.'”
At CNN’s town hall on Wednesday, Trump pleaded directly with congressional Republicans: “If they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to default,” he said.
Moderator Kaitlan Collins told Trump he once spoke out against using the debt limit as a bargaining wedge. “Sure, I was president then,” Trump replied, adding that it’s different this time “because I’m not president now.”
Asked about the economic disaster that could lead to the US’s first-ever bankruptcy, Trump said, “It could be very bad. It may be nothing.”
McCarthy, Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, DN.Y., at Tuesday’s meeting.Brendan Smialowski/AFP – Getty Images
Pressured by Trump’s bankrupt comments, McCarthy pivoted quickly Thursday to attack Biden, repeatedly arguing that House Republicans are the only ones in Washington who have passed legislation to raise the debt ceiling. The McCarthy package would raise the federal borrowing limit by $1.5 trillion or through March, whichever comes first, but it would reverse key elements of Biden’s agenda.
“I’ve seen how President Biden doesn’t want a deal and defaults,” McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol. House Republicans are “the only ones who raised the debt limit.”
R-Texas House Budget Committee chair Jodey Arrington wouldn’t say Thursday whether he agrees with Trump that debt default could be better than the current fiscal trajectory. “We passed a proposal to raise the debt ceiling and pay the bills,” he said.
“I’m encouraged that the parties sit down and talk,” Arrington said in an interview. “And that’s more than what we’ve had for almost 100 days. … I think what changed the dynamic was Republicans put a bill to paper and passed it through the House.”
A major challenge in any deal will be for McCarthy to keep his Republican members in line, especially the 20 agitators who tried to dissuade him from becoming a speaker and finally relented after pushing through a rule change giving each member a full House can enforce. vote to force him out of the speakership whenever they please.
Rep. Ralph Norman, RS.C., an ultra-conservative lawmaker who pushed for a deadlock on the debt limit, said the solution is for Senate Democrats and Biden to “accept what we sent them” and pass the House GOP bill as it is.
When told that the Democrats would not pass the bill, Norman replied, “Okay, then let’s face the consequences. That’s fine.”
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, another ultra-conservative Republican who has pushed for spending cuts on a debt ceiling extension, also called for Biden to adopt the debt and austerity package Republicans passed last month.
“Look, the deal on the table is the deal,” Roy said. “The president has a duty to bring something back for consideration. But if I’m being honest – for me the price of this is going up every day.
