The End of the Cold War: What Biden and McCarthy can do about the debt crisis in the U.S. if Congress stays in the House
Biden and McCarthy met at the White House earlier this week with other top congressional leaders. They came out of the meeting more optimistic than before about avoiding a debt default.
When Biden was in Japan, he said he would stay in touch with his aides, McCarthy and others as well. Earlier this week, he announced that he was shortening his trip so he could go back on Sunday.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned lawmakers that the U.S. could run out of cash to pay its bills as early as June 1, if Congress does not raise or suspend the debt limit before then.
Biden had said he wouldn’t sign a debt limit bill that didn’t address spending. Any deal that raises the debt limit must include spending cuts, insists House Republicans.
While some Democratic lawmakers are publicly saying it’s time for a break glass moment like using the 14th Amendment, others are willing to let the process play out a bit longer. They have effusive praise for the top White House negotiators — Steve Ricchetti, who has served in multiple Democratic administrations, and Shalanda Young, a veteran Capitol Hill aide with expertise in budget talks. The president and top Democratic leaders admit in divided government Democrats aren’t going to like everything in any deal the president negotiates with House Republicans.
The White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about these closed-door negotiations, told NPR a deal is still possible, but said both sides have to negotiate in good faith and recognize they won’t get everything they want.
Talks between the parties are going to be difficult because of the differences on budget issues. The president’s team is working hard to find a solution that can pass both the House and the Senate, an official said.
McCarthy wants a deal in which adults without dependents are required to work for safety net programs. It’s an area some Democratic lawmakers are worried Biden will agree to in order to avoid default.
Asked earlier whether he would accept new work requirements for some programs, Biden reiterated that he would not accept any that impact Medicaid – or, for other programs, cuts that go substantially beyond what currently exist.
The fear that Biden will go further than some in his own party are comfortable with is driving a Democratic backup plan to try to get around a compromise with McCarthy.
Biden and McCarthy both expressed optimism that a deal could be done after another White House meeting, and staff talks in the last few days.
“I see the path that we could come to an agreement. McCarthy told reporters Thursday morning that everybody is working hard and that they have a structure.
But with two weeks before the country runs out of money to pay its bills and negotiations limited to a tight circle of the president’s and the speaker’s negotiators, many progressive lawmakers are nervous about the lack of details about what is or isn’t on the table.
A key issue causing many on the left heartburn is Biden’s recent signal that he’s considering some changes to federal safety net programs, a central Republican demand.
Progressive Democrats are the most vocal about their trepidation—and are putting the president on notice that they are keeping a close eye on every morsel of information coming out of the negotiations.
“I’m not going to accept any work requirements that go much beyond what is already — what I — I voted years ago for the work requirements that exist. But it’s possible there could be a few others, but not anything of any consequence,” he said when pressed what kind of proposal he was discussing with McCarthy.
She said he voted in 1996 for work requirements and other things as part of the 1986 crime bill. We didn’t decide on Joe Biden in 1986 and 1996. We chose Joe Biden to be our 2020 president.
The bipartisan deficit problem is not the problem, but the problem is the problem: Sen. Markey, Rep. Maxwell Frost, Sen. Jim McGovern, and a senior aide to Biden
Florida freshman Rep. Maxwell Frost says now that the talks have narrowed between the president’s team and the speaker’s, he wants Biden to hold the line.
He told NPR that he had trust in the president. “I want to make sure that he knows that we do not want to see any cuts to the essential programs like food assistance, which is why I want to make sure that he and administration know that,” she said.
McCarthy wouldn’t reveal what kinds of new rules were on the table but he argued that there were benefits for putting restrictions on those getting federal benefits.
But Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told reporters he reached out to the Biden administration to say any deal that could impact anti-poverty programs needs to be rejected.
“The people that I’ve talked to in the White House have been reassuring from my point of view,” he said. I haven’t talked to the president about this yet,” she said. But make no mistake: what they are proposing would adversely impact the most vulnerable people in this country.”
If he has to, he will break with the president if he feels that a bill that screws poor people would be good for them.
A senior aide to the speaker of the House warned that if the speaker pushed too many provisions into the House GOP plan, the speaker wouldn’t have enough bipartisan support to approve a deal.
The president has a record of hammering out bipartisan bills, but Sen. Ed Markey thinks the other person at the negotiating table is the problem.
“It’s not an option. It’s a requirement, that’s what Raskin told reporters. It hasn’t been brought up before because Congress has never tried to force the president to accept our agenda or pay the debt if he doesn’t.
A bipartisan budget deal is not possible at this time, according to a letter the group wrote to Biden on Thursday.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/19/1176938636/debt-limit-14th-amendment
Biden, Raskin, and Raskin: The Case for a Resolution of the Biden/McConnor Problem with the 14th Amendment
Over the years, the idea has been raised. According to Harvard’s Laurence Tribe, he thinks it’s a legitimate way to solve the problem.
“The problem is, it would have to be litigated,” Biden said May 9, noting a debt limit extension would likely to be needed to avoid economic calamity. “I’m thinking about taking a look at it in a few months,” he said. I don’t think that will solve our problem now.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., acknowledged Democrats don’t have a lot of detail about what the president and the speaker are discussing. But he says it’s better to turn to the 14th amendment than agree to GOP demands.
“We’re saying to the president, if the bottom line is that the only deal to be had that McCarthy will sign onto is one in which ordinary families are savaged and in which the economy is flooded with fossil fuels — that is unacceptable,” Merkley said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a former Constitutional law professor, has been pressing the case for the president to rely on the 14th amendment for months. He says “it seems perfectly obvious” that the Constitution is the guiding authority.
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., says it’s important to not jump to any conclusions about where a final debt ceiling bill will end up and whether new work requirements will make it in a deal.
Negotiating can be a lot of fun and can lead to an exchange of ideas, but it is possible that something is not in the final package. “So who knows? But I do think that giving the president some latitude here is really important.”