Facing a July-or-so deadline to get the federal debt limit increased or the nation will be unable to pay its bills, and with the national debt at $31 trillion and soaring, President Joe Biden is … playing hardball, short-term, partisan politics.

Republicans took the House last fall all vowing to start slowing (at least) the ginormous growth in federal spending.

They elected Kevin McCarthy speaker after he committed to including spending cuts in any measure to raise the debt ceiling.

McCarthy and Biden then had what both sides called a productive face-to-face on Feb. 1 — only for the White House to decline further meetings, even with a presidential aide.

In early March, Biden released (a month late) a proposed budget that increases the deficit for the next two years, while supposedly trimming it in later years via huge new tax hikes, some of them of dubious constitutionality.

Speaker McCarthy last week asked the president for a meeting to discuss possible spending cuts, in a letter outlining options like limiting future spending increases as proposed by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, and/or clawing back unspent COVID-relief funds.

His unspoken message: I need to give my people something — maybe we can cut a deal for some restraint?

Biden turned the meeting down, announcing that he’ll sit down only after the House GOP produces a full budget.

Joe’s unspoken message?

I’m not interested in cutting a deal, Kevin: You’re going to have to spell something out, and I’ll probably denounce it as cruel and evil — more MAGA extremism.

Again, this is all clever-enough politics in the short term.

Biden can count on most of the media to echo him in painting any GOP proposal as throwing-grandma-off-the-cliff or starving-children or whatever.

Meanwhile, he gets to again pose as the best friend of Joe Lunchbox.

And he figures that, when the debt limit actually kicks in, enough Republicans will panic and sign on to some “clean” bill to allow more borrowing to pay Uncle Sam’s bills, passed mainly with Democrats’ votes.

Heck, the crisis might even lead to McCarthy’s ouster, and then possibly even to some deal that installs Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries as speaker.

All of it will be credit in the public-opinion bank in the runup to Biden’s 2024 re-election bid.

Thing is, this brinksmanship entails huge risks to the country Biden’s sworn to serve.

First, hiking the limit could prove tougher than the prez figures.

Even if he “wins” in the end, weeks of delay — with the nation at least technically in default — would do permanent damage to the nation’s credit and credibility.

That would not only increase the future interest rates on federal debt, it would increase fears that America is turning unreliable — making it that much harder for Washington to lead the world, and that much easier for Beijing to lead.

It could also easily trigger a recession, or deepen it if one’s already begun.

Evidently, our president doesn’t care about any of that.

As long as Republicans get the blame, it strengthens his position, right?

Pretty sad that he can’t see the difference between what’s best for him, and what’s best for the country.