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Fresh off a White House meeting with no serious breakthrough on the debt limit standoff, President Joe Biden is launching a new phase of his pressure campaign against House Republicans as he makes his case that lawmakers should lift the nation’s borrowing authority without any strings attached.
Biden will travel to Valhalla, New York, on Wednesday to argue that a measure passed by House GOP lawmakers that would lift the debt limit for about a year while curbing some federal spending would impose cuts for veterans care, educators and other domestic priorities. The area is represented by first-term Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, whose district Biden won in 2020.
The White House will use the trip to trumpet what it says is economic progress under the Democratic president – pointing to the number of jobs created during his term and a fresh focus on domestic manufacturing – while warning that an unprecedented debt default would threaten millions of jobs and raise the prospect of a recession.
Back in Washington, senior White House officials and congressional aides were starting to discuss a path to avert a catastrophic debt default as soon as June 1, in preparation for another meeting between Biden and top Capitol Hill leaders later this week. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., showed few signs that he and House Republicans were willing to budge from their debt limit proposal, and Biden underscored again that their plan was a non-starter with him.
“He’s proposed deep cuts that I believe will hurt American families,” Biden told reporters after his meeting with McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.
