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“President Joe Biden sought Monday to ease a debt limit standoff by inviting the four Congressional leaders to the White House on May 9 — signaling the growing fears of a default as the federal government might be unable to pay its bills as soon as June 1…
“Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., are at an impasse on lifting the government’s borrowing authority. The president has called for a clean increase to the $31.4 trillion cap, while McCarthy and GOP lawmakers are demanding spending cuts in return and passed a bill with $4.8 trillion in deficit savings over 10 years last week.” AP News
Here’s our prior coverage of the debt ceiling. The Flip Side
The right urges Biden to negotiate with McCarthy about potential spending cuts, and notes that both parties have historically used the debt limit to extract concessions.
"Deficit spending adds to debt — sorry to state the obvious — and since we’re already $31.4 trillion in hock, it’s logical and balanced to deal with them together. Republicans have done their part by agreeing to raise the ceiling so the U.S. doesn’t default on what it owes lenders. Simultaneously, they ask reasonably for parallel bipartisan efforts to reduce spending so the nation will live more nearly within its means over the next decade…
“There are three ways to avoid repeated confrontation on the debt ceiling. The first is to agree that spending and debt are inextricably linked and so should be dealt with together in a bipartisan fashion. But Democrats would regard that sensible step as a political humiliation. The second is similar to the first, for it is to spend less… So, Democrats go for the third option, which is to demagogue the problem and accuse Republicans of playing with fire when they’re actually trying to throw a fire blanket over a blaze of spending.”
Hugo Gurdon, Washington Examiner
“‘Previously, Republicans have raised the debt ceiling without issuing demands,’ the Washington Post reports. ’Three times, they addressed the borrowing cap under President Donald Trump without demanding fiscal reforms. Each time, Democrats serving in the minority also supplied their votes in a bid to avert a crisis.’ This is completely disingenuous…
“[The] 2017 debt limit deal ended up including $15 billion in additional spending demanded by the Democrats… Fast forward to July 2019, and Democrats again used the debt limit as leverage to secure concessions from Trump. This time, they won $324 billion in new spending and the end of the spending caps in the Budget Control Act. It was a huge victory for Democrats. It was also absolutely not a clean debt limit hike…
“As the Congressional Research Service noted, ‘Some commentators have claimed that contentious debt limit episodes are a recent phenomenon or that 'clean' debt limit increases were once the norm. Debt policy, however, has been a divisive issue since the beginning of American government and has often been linked with other policy decisions.’ So don’t believe Biden or his allies at the Washington Post for a second when they falsely claim that ‘clean’ debt limit hikes are the norm.”
Conn Carroll, Washington Examiner
“McCarthy won, and made it look relatively easy. Even the four Republicans who refused to vote for the bill were impressed by McCarthy’s leadership, even if they didn’t support the policy. And with that win, McCarthy effectively dumped the debt-ceiling mess in the laps of Biden and Schumer and made their refusal to negotiate the crisis point…
“Biden and Schumer won’t just roll over for the House bill passed last week, but clearly they plan to offer something, or there would be no point in setting up the meeting with McCarthy and Mitch McConnell… Biden and Schumer will try to pose as tough guys, but even some of Schumer’s caucus has openly wondered why neither man will talk with the duly elected leadership of a chamber of Congress on an important national policy. Biden blinked. McCarthy forced him to do so.”
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
The left urges House Republicans to increase the debt limit without concessions, and notes that Republicans had no problem increasing the deficit during the Trump administration.
The left urges House Republicans to increase the debt limit without concessions, and notes that Republicans had no problem increasing the deficit during the Trump administration.
“The [GOP] bill is political theater. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and his colleagues agreed to lift the debt ceiling to March 2024 — the middle of an election year — in exchange for sharp spending cuts and a slew of other GOP policy favorites, including clawing back IRS funding, putting more work requirements on welfare programs and rolling back green energy initiatives…
“In other words, House Republicans are saying that if Democrats give in on the majority of the GOP’s pet priorities, they will agree to lift the debt ceiling only until right before the next presidential election, when no one in Washington will want to compromise on another increase. This is recklessly unrealistic…
“In an ideal world, House Republicans would do their duty and lift the debt limit without exacting a ransom. This is about paying the money that Congress — in a largely bipartisan fashion — already committed to spend. This is also about reassuring a fragile world that the U.S. government can still do something as basic as pay its bills.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
“Make no mistake — this isn’t about debt. McCarthy and Republicans in both the House and Senate voted three times under Trump to raise the debt ceiling — and even to suspend it — in order to rack up nearly $8 trillion in debt, including about $2 trillion for tax cuts to the wealthy and big corporations. Although bipartisan spending has contributed to the national debt over the years, on partisan votes it’s actually been Republicans who’ve voted to add more to the national debt than Democrats…
“Biden, by contrast, reduced the annual deficit in 2022, and his 10-year budget plan for the next fiscal year would lower the national debt by $3 trillion while more robustly funding the programs so many of us rely upon. This is because, unlike the GOP plan, he includes revenues from fair taxation for the nation’s wealthiest… If McCarthy simply voted for that budget, he’d reduce the debt.”
Karen Dolan, The Hill
“The budget and debt ceiling are separate issues. Biden will budge on one of them… Biden’s principled case against bargaining over the debt ceiling is that doing so is effectively bargaining over policies Congress has already passed. When Congress passed an omnibus spending bill in December 2022, it authorized specific amounts of funding for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on September 30… By contrast, arguing over the budget is arguing over future spending, which is a proper thing for the White House and Congress to debate with each other…
“You can’t necessarily ‘not negotiate over the debt ceiling’ simply by declaring you’re not negotiating over it — and then start negotiations over a closely related issue simultaneously. But such theatrics, while silly and artificial, may be necessary to craft a deal before the ceiling is breached…
“Liam Donovan, a Republican lobbyist, has argued that it would give ‘a permission structure for Biden to engage, and both sides an opportunity to save face.’ The alternative is a humiliating capitulation by House Republicans, a unilateral circumvention of the debt limit by Biden, or an economic calamity.”
Dylan Matthews, Vox
