Kevin McCarthy Whines Biden Won't Negotiate On Debt Ceiling Vote
But he brags that Joe Manchin will meet with him
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is complaining that President Biden won't meet with him to negotiate a vote to raise the federal government's debt ceiling.
The federal government officially hit its debt limit last week, requiring Congress to approve an increase just so that the government can continue to pay the bills it's already accrued in past years.
Should Congress fail to increase the federal debt ceiling, the federal government will eventually fall into default and cause a national and global economic meltdown.
The government has begun taking “extraordinary measures” to prevent default, although those measures will run out in June, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
It's been increased, as a matter of course, dozens of times under both Democratic and Republican presidents over the past several decades.
Yet McCarthy and other hard-right Republicans in the House are looking to hold a debt-ceiling increase hostage, contingent on deep cuts to federal programs.
Biden and his team have made it clear, however, that they won't turn “the full faith and credit of the United States” over for bargaining.
Which has left McCarthy — who only won the speakership on an astounding 15th ballot, after making deep concessions to far-right members of his own party — to complain.
“We have to negotiate over the debt,” McCarthy insisted, despite dozens of instances in which the debt ceiling was raised dozens of times under Democrats and Republicans with no negotiation, including several times under former president Donald Trump. “Our whole government is designed to have compromise. Republicans control the House, Democrats have a small majority in the Senate and he is the president.”
McCarthy attempted to deflect the danger he and House Republicans are putting the federal government's credit in, back onto Biden.
“He is playing with the financial markets of America by saying he wouldn’t negotiate. We’ve hit the limit. So now we have until June or July. Let’s start communicating now and find where we can eliminate the waste, find the common places we get together, and have a responsible debt ceiling that’s lifted but puts us on a path to make us financially stronger,” McCarthy said, in an on-camera appearance on Fox News host Larry Kudlow's program. “And you’re right, Larry, the latest poll by Rasmussen, only 24 percent of America agrees with the president’s position that he is not going to negotiate at all. Does he not believe that there is not one dollar that you can find to eliminate waste in government?”
Rasmussen, however, is a pollster known to favor Republicans and the political right.
“I mean, they just passed a $1.7 trillion bill that two senators wrote who are no longer here at the end of the year. The Democrats have never passed a budget,” McCarthy added, repeating what has become a frequent canard on the right, given that Congress must pass budgets regardless of the party in power.
The speaker also — rather weakly — claimed that a debt-ceiling negotiation would be good for Democrats who could be in tough reelection races next year, such as Sen Jon Tester, of Montana.
McCarthy also tried to save face by saying that — while the president won't bargain with him — Sen Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, probably the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, will meet with him.
“You look at Tester, you look at a number of these Democrats who sit in very tough seats, and I think America wants to see some spending cut, but Manchin has reached out. He wants to come meet with me,” McCarthy said. “I’ve got Democrats who are in the House who believe the exact same thing. I don’t know anyone who agrees with the president that we should just raise the debt limit and have no negotiations, that they believe there is no area in government that we can eliminate waste.”
Actually, Biden hosted a meeting at the White House with top Democratic leaders who do agree with him on the debt-ceiling issue.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, flanked by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other leaders from both chambers, joined the president.
“Democrats are unified. Republicans are in chaos,” Schumer told reporters after congressional Democrats met with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in a Roosevelt Room meeting. “Democrats are saying that we can come together in a moderate way. [Republicans] are extremists. That’s the contrast: Unity versus chaos.”
At the start of the meeting, Biden said: “I have no intention of letting the Republicans wreck our economy, nor does anybody around this table.”
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