WASHINGTON — Ahead of President Joe Biden’s first meeting Wednesday with new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the White House issued two stern demands of the House speaker.
In a memo circulated Tuesday, top White House advisers Brian Deese and Shalanda Young said Biden intends to ask McCarthy, R-Calif., to “commit to the basic principle that America will never will default” and present his specific plan to reduce the deficit if he wants to link it to an increase in the debt ceiling.
McCarthy replied On twitter: “Mr. President: I received the memorandum from your staff. I am not interested in political games. I come to negotiate for the American people.”
When asked about Biden’s demand for his guarantees that the United States will not renege, McCarthy told reporters Tuesday: “It is irresponsible to say as a leader of the free world that you are not going to negotiate. I hope it’s just his personal and not him.
At a Democratic National Committee event later Tuesday, Biden criticized McCarthy for making “off the wall” promises to his fellow Republicans to secure his position.
The public back-and-forth between the Democratic president and the Republican speaker suggests the meeting is unlikely to be fruitful in breaking the impasse over the most important item on their mutual to-do list: avoiding a financially dangerous default sooner than the Department Treasury says the June 5 deadline is for Congress to act.
Just hours before the meeting, the White House issued a statement doubling down on its aggressive stance against the Republican Party.
“After months of advocating to cut Medicare and Social Security benefits, Republicans in Congress owe the American people an answer: Will you match President Biden and commit to releasing his blueprint for the economy? Yes or no?” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said, adding: “What are the House Republicans hiding?”
Biden continues to insist that he will not make political concessions to pay the bills that Congress has legally imposed on the US. The Senate and the White House agree to spending cuts. But Republicans haven’t said what they want to cut.
The White House’s goal in issuing its demands is to expose that the narrow Republican majority in the House lacks a cohesive plan to cut spending. Experts say a plan to balance the budget over a 10-year horizon, as some conservatives have called for, would require less spending on the military, Social Security or Medicare, or higher taxes. Republicans are divided on whether and how to target those piles of money (and Democrats are eager to make it politically painful for the GOP if they propose such cuts).
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said Democrats support Biden’s refusal to add policy add-ons to a debt ceiling extension.
“We are totally united. They are in a car accident before it even started,” he said. “They don’t know what their budget is. They don’t know what they demand. They just have this vague notion that this is a place where they’re supposed to make trouble. And it does not work. It will not work. We have learned the lesson of 2011.
“The faster they understand that they have to solve this problem themselves, the better off they will be and the better off the country will be,” he said. “There is no room for negotiation around the debt limit. The question of the debt limit is whether or not the United States pays its bills. And if they want to connect it to any other foreign element, I’m a no.”
In 2011, then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden negotiated with a GOP-led House on a debt limit package, which failed, bringing the US to the brink of default. They narrowly avoided it, but sources involved in those talks say Obama and Biden came to view the strategy as a mistake and vowed to separate fiscal policy and debt limit negotiations.
‘Like a first date’
Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who met with McCarthy on Tuesday, said the meeting with Biden would be “to get to know each other, like a first date.”
Biden and McCarthy arrive at the meeting without a previous relationship and with very different styles.
Biden, long known as an old-school moderate, has set out to politically crush Donald Trump’s rising wing of the Republican Party, which McCarthy has embraced. Biden rose through the ranks in Washington as a deal-making institutionalist, while McCarthy’s rise is due in large part to his unique talents as a relationship builder. And there’s a generation gap: McCarthy was 7 when Biden was first elected to the Senate.
“It’s probably not going to be a warm, intimate relationship,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “I think it’s going to be more transactional. But I think they both share the view that the debt ceiling cannot be exceeded. So that’s a start.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Biden’s budget is due in March and Republicans will “work to meet our deadline” on a House budget for April.
Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, said it should be up to Biden to propose a debt ceiling bill that can pass Congress.
“I don’t know why you don’t want to do that. I mean, he’s the one who wants to raise the debt ceiling,” Scott said. “He should be doing it. He is the president.
“He has the authority to do this on his own, by the way. It is clear that the Treasury Department has a right to make sure that we do not default on our debt,” Scott added.
A Scott spokesman later clarified that he meant that the Treasury Department can prioritize payments to creditors in case the US goes over the limit, not that “Biden can raise the debt ceiling whenever he wants”.
The Biden administration insisted that Congress must act to avoid defaulting on US obligations.
“It is absolutely essential that Congress raise the debt ceiling, and this has been the position of all Treasury secretaries from both parties,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said in a statement. “We cannot negotiate whether or not we are going to comply with our obligations, it is simply an obligation that we have to do.”
Fobes Ghael, Garrett Haake, kyle stewart, scott wong Y Sally Broston contributed.
