Global Courant 2023-05-10 07:57:17
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and congressional leaders failed to resolve the looming default crisis Tuesday afternoon during a controversial meeting in the Oval Office, but they plan to meet again Friday.
Each side accused the other of being unreasonable, and Biden said — for the first time — after the meeting that there have been discussions in the White House about taking the unilateral step to invoke the 14th Amendment to bypass Congress and ignore the debt ceiling, though he later appeared to reject the idea, citing litigation.
A source described the atmosphere in the room as “tense and serious,” and Biden suggested afterward that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was sometimes out of step.
“Every once in a while there was a little statement that was maybe a little bit of an exaggeration from the speaker,” Biden said of meeting with leaders from each party in both chambers of Congress. Biden said the three other participants were “very measured and approachable.”
Meanwhile, McCarthy accused Biden of waiting too long to open negotiations. “Everyone in this meeting repeated the positions they were in. I didn’t see any new movement,” McCarthy said.
Republicans want to tie spending cuts to a raise in the debt ceiling, but Democrats and the White House said such plans would cut critical social services.
“By not taking bankruptcy off the table, Speaker McCarthy is endangering America and making it that much harder to move forward in budget negotiations,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y.
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., promised a solution would come in time. “The United States is not going to default. It never has and it never will,” he said. “The solution lies between the only person in America who can sign a bill and the Speaker of the House.”
With the Treasury Department saying the government will run out of money on June 1 unless Congress raises its borrowing limit, Biden and McCarthy have very little time to break the deadlock and have virtually no pre-existing relationship.
But even sitting down together is seen as a major step forward, as the White House has so far refused to negotiate the debt ceiling on its own and both sides agree that a resolution is essential to avoid the unprecedented economic disaster of bankruptcy .
President Joe Biden in Washington on April 25.Andrew Harnik/AP
“I hope the next two weeks are different,” said McCarthy, who has been looking for months to meet with Biden to discuss budget cuts.
Staffers from both sides will continue to talk before the leaders meet again on Friday.
Biden has said he is not willing to negotiate the debt ceiling itself, but is open to discussing separately the cuts that Republicans are pursuing as part of the budget process.
Asked Tuesday night if he would consider a short-term debt deal, Biden told reporters: “I’m not ruling anything out — I said I’d come back and talk. One thing I rule out is standard.”
To raise the debt ceiling, Biden will need the support not only of McCarthy’s House Republicans, but also at least some Senate Republicans and possibly McConnell to garner the 60 votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster.
McConnell said this will not happen until Biden has reached an agreement with McCarthy.
“There is no sentiment in the Senate, certainly not 60 votes, for a clean debt ceiling (raise). So there must be an agreement,” McConnell said.
Biden’s push for a clean raise, meaning no strings attached, has frustrated Republicans in Congress.
A person familiar with the matter said McCarthy and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told members they were left furious after the speaker met with Biden and congressional leaders. McCarthy signaled to members that he will not accept a clean raise in the debt ceiling under any circumstances, and GOP members on Tuesday encouraged McCarthy not to fold.
McCarthy told members that the meeting was a waste of time and he hoped Biden would not waste his time again on Friday.
“Maybe Friday is the real deal,” the source said.
Republicans, as they did during the Obama administration in 2011 and 2013, are trying to use the threat of bankruptcy as leverage to force the Democratic-controlled Senate and the president to agree to cuts. Exactly what they expect to be able to cut is unclear and will likely only be revealed through negotiation.
The Republican-controlled House passed a bill last month to raise the debt limit, which amounted to a wish list of spending cuts and other policies, but GOP lawmakers have privately acknowledged that the measure was more about trying to strengthen their bargaining power than about creating legislation. that could become law.
McCarthy’s team has told conservative influencers it believes Biden will concede and eventually make some concessions in accordance with GOP law, a source familiar with the discussions said.
When it comes down to it, options McCarthy has ruled out, such as a bipartisan resignation request, could be back on the table, the source said.
“It’s not going to be pretty at the end of the day,” the source said, adding that McCarthy seemed to have few good options and anything could happen.
Biden on Tuesday left open the possibility that he might cancel plans to attend the Group of Seven Major Industrial Nations summit in Japan next week. “I’m still committed, but this is clearly the single most important thing on the agenda,” he said, adding that it was “unlikely” that he would skip the trip.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that Americans were divided on who to blame if the administration defaulted on its debts, with independent voters slightly more likely to blame congressional Republicans than Biden.
The White House and Democratic super-PACs have been pressuring moderate Republicans in battleground districts in the hopes that they will back down.
Biden will travel to New York’s Hudson Valley on Wednesday — where Republican Representative Mike Lawler ousted Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney last year — to demand that Congress raise the debt ceiling without conditions and to pass the GOP austerity bill, which the White House says would to be reduced, to be destroyed. services for veterans, teachers and others.
That Tuesday’s meeting all worked in favor of Biden, a former member of the Republican House said. In a period of raucous partisanship, he appears collegial in calling the four leaders of both parties to the Oval Office to settle differences, said Joe Walsh, who represented an Illinois district in the House for 12 years.
Biden’s message is ultimately the most reasonable, which boils down to, “‘Come on, let’s pay our bills before we talk about budget cuts,'” Walsh said. That’s an idea that will resonate with the American people. Team Biden believes they are in better shape politically, and this meeting makes Biden look better.
