McCarthy demands that Biden invite him to the White House for debt limit talks, outlines top priorities for spending cuts, including welfare work requirements and reducing spending to pre-pandemic levels.
- McCarthy and the president are deadlocked as Biden insists he will sit down with the Republican president once he releases his budget.
- Republican budget expected for April
- ‘Mister. Chairman, in a nutshell: It’s on the clock… Please have your team contact mine later this week to set a date for our next meeting.’
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrote a letter to President Biden criticizing him for being “missing in action” in the debt limit negotiations and demanded that his team arrange a meeting between the two for the end of the week
McCarthy and Biden met nearly two months ago in their highly anticipated first meeting in which there was little to come, other than the pair agreeing to sit down again and discuss a deal to raise the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt limit.
“With each passing day, I am deeply concerned that he is jeopardizing an already fragile economy by insisting on his extreme position of refusing to negotiate meaningful changes,” McCarthy wrote in the letter.
‘Mister. Chairman, in a nutshell: you’re on the clock… Please have your team contact mine later this week to set a date for our next meeting.’
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrote a letter to President Biden slamming him for being “missing in action” in the debt limit negotiations and demanded that his team set up a meeting between the two by the end of the week. .
Biden and McCarthy met for lunch in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day, but have not met over the budget in nearly two months.
The speaker outlined four broad priorities for spending cuts to ‘pre-inflationary levels and limiting annual growth’, recovering unspent Covid-19 funds from stimulus bills, strengthening work requirements for welfare programs like SNAP and Medicaid and measures to increase energy production and secure the border.
McCarthy and the president are deadlocked as Biden insists he will sit down with the Republican president once he releases his budget. Republicans have said they will release their budget in April.
‘Why do we have to have a budget to sit down and talk about the debt ceiling?’ McCarthy asked during the Republican retreat in Orlando last week.
Complicating matters further is Biden’s demand for a clean increase in the debt ceiling and McCarthy’s insistence that he will not allow the debt ceiling to be lifted without spending cuts.
Treasury Sec Janet Yellen has warned that the US risks defaulting if Congress does not act on the debt ceiling by June.
“House Republicans are united in our view that the best way to reduce the national debt is to limit spending,” McCarthy said. “I am prepared to sit down to discuss a variety of means to achieve savings of trillions of dollars.”
The White House released its $6.8 trillion budget plan earlier this month.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates referred to an earlier statement by Karine Jean-Pierre in response to McCarthy’s letter:
‘It’s time for the Republicans to stop playing games, agree to pass a clean debt ceiling bill and stop threatening to wreak havoc on our economy. And if you want to have a conversation about the economic and fiscal future of our nation, it’s time for you to come up with a budget.’