The standoff between President Biden and congressional Republicans has turned ugly as the clock ticks towards the country running out of money to pay its bills.
Both sides blame the other for not committing to brushing off bankruptcy — as Democrats push for a non-binding debt ceiling raise and Republicans say they won’t allow the nation to go further into debt without cuts.
R-Texas Senator Ted Cruz said Wednesday that Biden will not negotiate the debt ceiling because “his mental faculties are now too small to do what he did in 2011, to sit down and actually work together on a solution to the issues.’
“What we’re left with is a bunch of young White House staffers—radical kids who are perfectly willing to risk not paying the debt.”
In 2011, the US was at a similar point, coming within 72 hours of defaulting on its debts. Then-Vice President Biden stepped in to negotiate with congressional Republicans on behalf of the Obama administration and crafted the Budget Control Act — which imposed $917 in spending cuts in exchange for $900 billion in an initial spending cap increase.
According to reports, President Obama and Biden agreed never to negotiate the debt limit again after that.
The deadlock between President Biden and congressional Republicans has turned ugly as the clock ticks towards the nation running out of money to pay its bills
“This should be the biggest problem they face every day. They should have daily meetings with Kevin McCarthy to figure out how we pull this off,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said at a news conference Thursday.
Cruz accused Biden of scaring the stock market by not telling Americans that the nation will not default on its payments — a similar accusation the Democrats made against Speaker McCarthy.
Policymakers across the board appear to be in crisis mode after the Treasury warned Monday that the “X date” for the nation’s maximum debt could now fall as early as June 1.
It is essential that the debt ceiling is raised in a timely manner so that the US government can pay all its bills on time. Failing to do so would be unprecedented,” warned Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as the central bank hiked rates by another 25 basis points on Wednesday.
We would be in unfamiliar territory and the impact on the US economy would be highly uncertain and could be quite dire. So I’ll just leave it at that. We do not give advice to either side. We just want to point out that it is very important that this happens.’
On Monday, President Biden called Speaker McCarthy to schedule a meeting after three months of refusing to meet with the House GOP leader. Still, he insists the debt limit must be lifted before the two can talk about austerity.
“There will be no increase in the debt limit without negotiations,” Senate GOP Whip John Thune stressed Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will also attend the meeting on May 9, though McConnell insists he will stay in the background of the negotiations as McCarthy and Biden reach an agreement.
Schumer backed Biden on Tuesday by insisting that a clean debt ceiling bill is the only thing Senate Democrats will agree to.
The Speaker gives the American who gives the American people two terrible options. Either default on the debt or default the country with hefty cuts to law enforcement, first responders, veterans, seniors and even cancer research,” Schumer said.
“Speaker McCarthy and the far right have increased the likelihood of default.”
Republicans in the House of Representatives last week passed a party debt ceiling bill that would offer a $1.4 trillion debt ceiling increase in exchange for $4.5 trillion in spending cuts.
Thune, surrounded by GOP senators to talk debt ceiling, says clean debt limit increase ‘won’t happen’
But even that bill took aggressive political wrangling to get the conference on board, and the question now arises as to whether McCarthy can get through a less conservative bill negotiated with Democrats.
For months, conservatives in both the House and Senate, many of whom prided themselves on having never voted for a debt limit increase, gathered around the dinner table of Senator Rick Scott of Florida to talk about how to implement harsh cuts . in the GOP account.
“You have to understand how far the conservatives had to go in the House to get 217 votes,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. less than the bill of the house.
With neither the president nor the speaker showing any sign of blinking, some Democrats are looking at alternative options.
White House officials are reportedly looking to invoke the 14th Amendment. A seldom used provision reads: “The validity of the national debt of the United States authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payment of pensions and contributions for services in the suppression of insurrection or rebellion, shall not be called into question .’
Schumer pushed that idea on Tuesday. “The right way is a clean debt ceiling,” he said.
Schumer plans to vote on a clean debt ceiling in his chamber, while Jeffries tries to raise one in the House through a discharge request.
The discharge petition allows a significant group of members to bypass the leadership to get legislation directly on the table.
“We will be in touch immediately upon our return to Washington next week regarding the discharge effort,” Jeffries wrote in a Dear Colleague letter.
But Jeffries, of New York, would need the signatures of five GOP moderates in the House to advance the bill, in addition to all its members, a highly unlikely scenario.
For now, the entire Congress will have to wait and see what comes of Tuesday’s meeting at the White House.