WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday after meeting with President Joe Biden and Democratic congressional leaders that he “didn’t see any new movement” toward ending a months-long impasse over raising the nation’s borrowing limit. But he said they would reconvene Friday in hopes of averting a potential U.S. default by the federal government.
Lawmakers and their staffs were to continue separate discussions as soon as Tuesday evening on the annual federal budget at Biden’s encouragement, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said, as Democrats signaled openness to some spending cuts as long as they were disconnected from the threat of default.
“I asked the president this simple question, Does he not believe there’s any place we could find savings,” McCarthy told reporters outside the White House. “All I’m asking is that we spend the amount of money we spent five months ago.”
The high-stakes Oval Office sitdown ended without any visible breakthroughs, with the government at risk of being unable to meet its obligations as soon as June 1, raising the specter of economic chaos.
Republicans came to the White House hoping to negotiate sweeping cuts to federal spending in exchange for allowing new borrowing to avoid default. Biden, on the other hand, reinforced his opposition to allowing the country’s full faith and credit to be held “hostage” to negotiations — while affirming his willingness to hold talks on the budget only after default is no longer a threat.
As the president welcomed McCarthy, Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Oval Office for just over an hour, he quipped to reporters, “We’re going to get started, solve all the world’s problems.”
There seemed to be at least a bit of daylight between McConnell, who has let his House counterpart take the lead in negotiations and backed him up ahead of the White House meeting, and McCarthy.
The Senate leader categorically said, “The United States is not going to default. It never has and it never will.” The speaker, though, simply said, “I’ve done everything in my power to make sure we will not default.”
While calling for a “clean” increase to the debt limit, Biden has said he is open to discussion about how to reduce the federal deficit. His budget plan would trim deficits by nearly $3 trillion over a decade, mainly through tax increases on the wealthy and changes such as letting the government negotiate over prescription drug prices.
By contrast, the bill that passed the House with Republican votes would achieve $4.5 trillion in deficit savings through cuts in spending, eliminating tax breaks for investing in clean energy, and reversing Biden’s plans to reduce the burdens of student loan debt.