Debt ceiling negotiators for President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy traded more budget-cutting ideas at the Capitol Tuesday, but Republicans warned of a “lack of urgency” at the White House to resolve the standoff in time to avert a potentially chaotic federal default.
Debt ceiling talks showed few signs of outward progress Tuesday as negotiators for President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy traded more budget-cutting ideas but Republicans warned of a “lack of urgency” at the White House to resolve the standoff in time to avert a potentially chaotic federal default.
With barely a week to go before a deadline as soon as June 1 the Democratic president and the Republican speaker were staring down a financial crisis. Failure to strike a deal would be unprecedented, and certain to throw U.S. financial markets into turmoil, inflicting economic pain at home and abroad. Markets lowered Tuesday with no deal in sight.
“We’re not there yet,” McCarthy said at the Capitol, reiterating he won’t bring any bill forward “that doesn’t spend less than we spent this year.”
Behind closed doors, McCarthy urged his slim House Republican majority to “just stick together” despite their own factions as he negotiates the strongest deal possible for conservatives, said lawmakers exiting the private session.
But McCarthy did not expect a deal by day’s end. He told reporters the teams are eyeing “creative” ways of rolling back spending that all sides can accept.
“I believe we can still get there — and get there before June 1,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said.
Dragging into a third week, the negotiations over raising the nation’s debt limit, now at $31 trillion, were never supposed to arrive at this point — a crisis in the making.
From the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was “ridiculous” to suggest Biden wasn’t acting with urgency. “He wants to see this done as soon as possible,” she said.
The White House insisted early on it was unwilling to barter over the need to pay the nation’s bills, demanding that Congress simply lift the ceiling as it has done many times before with no strings attached.
But the newly elected speaker urged the president at an Oval Office meeting in February to come to the negotiating table on a budget package that would reduce spending to reduce ballooning deficits in the post-COVID era in exchange for the vote to allow future debt.
Both men said after a crucial meeting late Monday at the White House — after the president returned from the Group of Seven summit in Japan — that talks were productive.
