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Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said Sunday that she believes President Joe Biden should sit down with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and negotiate Republicans’ proposed spending cuts, but she insisted those talks should be in relation to the federal budget – not raising the debt limit.
“Of course, President Biden should sit down with Speaker McCarthy,” Klobuchar told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” ahead of the House’s expected vote this week on McCarthy’s bill to raise the debt limit. “But let me put an idea out there. The proposal that McCarthy has put forward, that belongs in the budget. … Our main goal right now is to make clear that we are going to avoid default.”
“They should start those negotiations now,” the senator added.
McCarthy introduced a proposal last week to raise the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt limit by an additional $1.5 trillion in exchange for cuts to domestic spending programs across the board.
But Biden and his top advisers have said they will not negotiate a debt ceiling increase and will only accept a clean proposal to raise the nation’s borrowing limit.
The US hit its debt ceiling in January and can’t continue to borrow to meet its obligations unless Congress raises or suspends it.
