Biden and McCarthy clash ahead of White House debt ceiling meeting

WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy put in order to meet Wednesday afternoon to discuss the looming U.S. debt ceiling deadline, both sides are waging an increasingly reproachful messaging battle, one that offers a glimpse of how the next few months of political knife fighting could unfold.

On Wednesday morning, McCarthy clasped a closed meeting with his Republican caucus in the Capitol to preview his sit-down with the president. Leaving that joining, the speaker said its purpose was “just education” for his members, according to Bloomberg News.

“If [Biden] doesn’t want to monkey about politics, and if he wants to start negotiating, let’s sit down and start negotiating where we could come together for the American plain,” said McCarthy.

But while the House speaker says he is preparing for a negotiation, the White House is battening down the breeds for a fight.

A White House memo circulated Tuesday sought to portray the 3:15 p.m. ET meeting as a showdown, one between a Autonomous president who will protect Social Security, Medicare, health insurance and food stamps, and a House Republican preponderance that will demand cuts to these programs in exchange for helping Democrats avoid a catastrophic default on the land’s debt. 

The Treasury Department has started to take extraordinary steps to keep paying the government’s bills, and expects to be skilful to avoid a first-ever default at least until early June. Failure by Congress to raise or suspend the debt limit by then could impose economic havoc around the world.

McCarthy has consistently said cuts to the popular Social Security and Medicare programs are “off the comestible” in any debt ceiling talks. But Democrats point to past GOP plans and proposals to argue that the party ultimately ends to slash those benefits.

The three-page memo from National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and Post of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young said Biden plans to ask McCarthy for two things: first, to publicly warranty the U.S. will never default on its debt.

It’s a promise that, if made, would effectively strip McCarthy of any leverage he has in the responsible ceiling process.

Second, Biden plans to ask McCarthy when House Republicans will release a “detailed, encyclopaedic budget.” It’s little secret that House Republicans are divided over which federal programs to cut in their larger effort to trim public spending. By pressuring McCarthy to release a detailed budget, Democrats hope to spotlight these divisions.

McCarthy scoffed at the memo. 

“Mr. President: I ascertained your staff’s memo. I’m not interested in political games,” the House speaker wrote on Twitter shortly after the memo was saved.  “I’m coming to negotiate for the American people.”

But while McCarthy may say he is coming to talk, Biden has repeatedly said he choose not negotiate with Republicans over the debt limit under any circumstances. This is despite the fact that Biden indigences Republican votes, and McCarthy’s support, in order to move debt ceiling legislation through the House. 

McCarthy guided aim at Biden over this, too.

“It’s irresponsible to say as the leader of the free world he’s not going to negotiate,” McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol on Tuesday. “I expectation that’s just [Biden’s] staff and not him.”

Instead of band government spending cuts to the debt ceiling vote, the president wants to deal with GOP demands in separate budget coming to terms later this year.

For House Republicans, that’s a non-starter. They view a vote to increase the government’s borrowing power and their enquires for cuts to government spending as inextricably linked. They equate the U.S. government to a family with maxed out credit wags that needs to scale back its household spending.  

“We need to sit down and have a responsible adult conversation match families do,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Tuesday at a press conference in the Capitol. “Because if a line maxes out the credit card, they’re not just going to go get another credit card.”

“You’re going to pay your debts,” put about Scalise. “But you’re also going to have a responsible conversation about how we stop this from happening again.” 

To be well-defined, the debt ceiling does not operate like a consumer credit card. Raising the debt limit does not freed the way for any new spending, it merely allows the government to cover its preexisting commitments.

Complicating McCarthy’s task on Wednesday is the fact that all GOP caucus colleagues do not share his belief that the government must raise the debt ceiling. Several fiscal hardliners in the House obtain already made it clear they’re willing to force a default on the national debt if they don’t get massive spending prepares in return for passing it.

But it comes with a catch: Any bill that the House approves must also be able to win 60 chooses to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate. There, the type of draconian spending cuts sought by far-right House Republicans intent have no chance of passing.

On Wednesday, the Democratic Senate The greater part Leader Chuck Schumer of New York reminded the House speaker of his challenge.

“For days, Speaker McCarthy has heralded this sit-down as some well-intentioned of major win in his debt ceiling talks,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Speaker McCarthy, if you don’t have a plan, you can’t earnestly pretend you’re having any real negotiations.”

McCarthy’s task of uniting his unruly caucus behind one plan would be finicky under any circumstances. But it’s all the more challenging because his majority in the House is so narrow.

If he were to try to pass a House debt ceiling charge with only Republican votes, McCarthy’s margin for error would be razor thin. He could only give forth entangled with to lose four members of his caucus and still reach the 218-vote majority needed to pass the legislation.

He could also try to ingenuity a debt ceiling bill that would pass with votes from more moderate Republicans and a liberal bloc of Democrats.

Betting on members of the opposing party to bail him out would be risky. But not as dangerous as failing to lift the accountable ceiling altogether. 

For both Democrats and Republicans, the worst case scenario would be an unprecedented government default on its liability that could halt daily operations within the federal government and cause turmoil in equity markets and the broader husbandry. 

A Moody’s Analytics report last year said a default on Treasury bonds could throw the U.S. economy into a tailspin as bad as the Tremendous Recession. If the U.S. were to default, gross domestic product would drop 4% and 6 million workers would expend their jobs, Moody’s projected.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has already invoked so-called “extraordinary lay off mete outs” to avoid default. Yellen has also pointed to early June as the date by which those measures will run out, and by which Congress sine qua non act to raise the limit or face dire consequences. 

Wealthy into Biden and McCarthy’s meeting, the absolute necessity of raising the debt ceiling may be one of the few things they agree upon. Yet with specific months to go until the risks become more dire, there is little expectation that Wednesday’s sit-down between Biden and McCarthy longing yield any breakthroughs. 

Instead, the real significance of the meeting may be that it will offer the House speaker and the president, who do not recall each other very well, their first chance to start building some kind of working relationship. But if this week was any warning, cooperation is still a long way off. 

Biden on Tuesday called McCarthy a “decent man,” but suggested he is beholden to the far-right wing of his debauch.

Speaking at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in New York, Biden took aim at the deals McCarthy made with reactionary holdouts in order to be elected House Speaker. He called the agreements “off the wall.” 

The party that McCarthy leads today “is not your framer’s Republican Party,” said Biden. “This is a different breed of cat.”

It remains to be seen whether McCarthy can herd all of the cats that Biden portrayed into the same pen. And if he can, whether the president will come to the table.