President Biden meets with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and others at the White House on May 9 in hopes of breaking an impasse over the U.S. debt limit.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
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Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
President Biden meets with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and others at the White House on May 9 in hopes of breaking an impasse over the U.S. debt limit.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
President Biden and top congressional leaders will meet Tuesday at the White House to continue talks on raising the nation’s debt limit, but no major breakthrough is expected at the meeting, with sources on both on Capitol Hill and the White House signaling the negotiations haven’t made major progress.
Although the president has struck an optimistic tone about finding a deal, House Speaker McCarthy has been publicly critical of the White House’s approach to the talks in recent days, warning there is little time to reach a deal and describing what he sees as little movement.
The president is slated to depart for the G7 summit in Japan on Wednesday and the speaker suggested on Tuesday he should reconsider that plan.
“Look, the president of the United States, he can make that decision one way or another. But all I know is we got 16 more days to go. I don’t think I’d spend eight days somewhere out of the country. I think the country wants an American president focused on solving American problems,” McCarthy told reporters.
A source familiar with the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private negotiations, said there were potential areas of common ground between the two sides, including clawing back some unspent COVID aid money (roughly $60 billion), and permitting reform to speed up approval for new energy projects. But the two sides were still far apart on spending caps for federal programs for some length of time (the White House is pushing for a two-year timeframe, but House Republicans want one that lasts 10 years) and new work requirements for adults without dependents who receive support from safety net programs like food stamps. They also remain divided on “revenue raisers” like closing loopholes in the tax code, the source said.
The source described staff conversations as very productive, noting that they met over the weekend and through Monday. Staff meetings would continue when Biden travels to Asia, the source said.
McCarthy told reporters on Monday “there’s no progress” and “we have no agreements on anything.” He was skeptical the group could hammer out a deal by the weekend. McCarthy suggested that was the timeframe needed for an outline of a bill so that aides would have enough time to draft legislation, have both chambers vote on it, and get it to the president’s desk before the “X-date” — the date that the Treasury Department believes the country will run out of money to pay its bills.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent top leaders a letter late Monday reiterating that the U.S. would hit the debt ceiling by early June, as early as June 1.
For weeks the White House insisted the administration would not negotiate unless Republicans agreed to first pass a clean bill to increase the debt limit without any conditions. But the president signaled he was open to some of these ideas, which were included in the bill that the House approved last month, including using savings from unspent COVID funds. He noted that he voted for the “tougher aid programs” that are in the law now, but he thought any new work requirement rules should be different for Medicaid, but was waiting to see the details of what Republicans were proposing.
Progressive Democrats on Capitol Hill rejected changing any of the current rules for food stamps and raised alarm bells that this was part of the negotiations. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., released a statement Monday evening saying: “I didn’t come here to take food away from hungry kids, and that’s exactly what this proposal would do; a proposal that would make Scrooge blush.”
On Tuesday morning, McCarthy pushed back at the notion that the president would not agree to work requirements for Medicaid, saying the issue is a red line for him. He also argued there was bipartisan support for these kinds of rules for all government programs, not just some, and as a senator, Biden voted for similar rules. “Are the Democrats become so progressive so far to the left, they’re changing their policies now and they want to put the country in default?” McCarthy asked.
Democratic aides say they have pressed for tax increases as part of any spending cap deal. But last week Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., called revenues a “red line” for McCarthy.
Over the weekend, the president sounded more upbeat about how the talks were going, telling reporters, “It’s never good to characterize a negotiation in the middle of the negotiations. I remain optimistic because I am a congenital optimist. But I really think there is a desire on their part as well as ours to reach an agreement. And I think we’ll be able to do it.”
Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who is urging lawmakers in both parties to reach a deal, said on C-SPAN Monday that “there’s a real risk for miscalculation” for lawmakers to not leave enough time to finalize a deal and approve it before the early June deadline for avoiding a default.
–NPR’s Barbara Sprunt contributed to this report
This story originally appeared on NPR
