Republicans in the House are signaling growing skepticism that the June 1 deadline set by Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen for lawmakers raise the debt ceiling is really set in stone.
Those doubt are significant since the June 1 deadline is now just more than a week away, and the White House and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) are both far apart from a deal.
Disbelief in the date is fueling the right flank’s argument that Republicans should not give in on their debt limit increase demands over manufactured deadline pressure.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) stood up in a House GOP conference meeting on Tuesday morning and suggested that Republicans call in Yellen to have her “show her work” and reasoning behind the June 1 date, he confirmed to The Hill.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) separately suggested subpoenaing Yellen to see her reasoning.
While the skepticism of the so-called “X-date” is particularly apparent from the House GOP’s right flank, it is not limited to them.
House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), one of the lead negotiators with White House staff in debt limit negotiations, said he doesn’t think the White House appears to be urgently seeking a deal. And he said that raises questions in his own mind about the true deadline.
“I want to trust the Treasury’s math, but they’re going to have to show their work,” McHenry told The Hill. “And if the White House team doesn’t have a sense of urgency, if the President doesn’t have a sense of urgency here, then that raises more questions – valid questions – about how they justify the date.”
McHenry noted that Yellen is scheduled to appear before his Congressional panel on June 7, days after the potential X-date.
Republican leadership is not yet entertaining blowing past the June 1 date without acting to raise the debt limit, however.
McCarthy on Monday said he is taking Yellen’s analysis at face value.
“They decide when that date is,” McCarthy told reporters on Monday. “The president may have more information on that, but she has been very clear.”
McCarthy added on Tuesday that he thinks a deal is still possible before that deadline.
But the skepticism could put pressure on McCarthy.
The hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus last week called on GOP leaders “to use every leverage and tool at their disposal” to get the Senate to pass or modify the House GOP’s debt limit increase, spending cut, and policy reform bill that it passed last month, and work out any differences between what the Senate passed.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said that the bill is dead on arrival in the upper chamber, and McCarthy said Monday that compromise will be necessary in part because the Senate has not acted on it.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said that negotiations with the White House “are predicated on Janet Yellen saying that the date is June 1” – and signaled if the deadline is not real, there is no reason for Republicans to negotiate for a slimmed-down deal with the White House.
“I don’t know why we accept that. We haven’t seen her work. We haven’t seen any figures,” Perry said. “We also know that the [tax revenue] quarterlies coming in at the middle of the month, are going to be flushed with cash. There’s absolutely no reason to do this, and we all know it.”
Yellen first projected on May 1 that the U.S. would exhaust cash and extraordinary measures to continue paying its bills by early June and possibly June 1, catching some members of Congress by surprise and sparking negotiations between President Biden and McCarthy about the debt limit.
In another letter to McCarthy on Monday, Yellen that while “it is impossible to predict with certainty the exact date when Treasury will be unable to pay all the government’s bills,” it is “highly likely” that the government will not be able to meet all of its obligations “by early June, and potentially as early as June 1.”
That wording does suggest there could be some flexibility, and it is being used by some Republicans to argue they should not be bullied into a quick deal.
“I do think Yellen will say that we do have money coming in. She’ll extend it. But right now she’s using June 1. Everybody knows that’s false,” Norman said. “The first tax revenues coming in particular from California and other states.”
Critical Republicans, though, do not have a sense of when they think the real X-date might be.
“Ask her. We need to subpoena her and get her plan,” Norman said.
When asked if Yellen’s June 1 date was real, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told reporters: “Ask Janet Yellen. She’s the one with the magic ouija board.”
“The fact is, we’re gonna have cash in June. The fact is, we’re not going to default on our debt. That’s just completely false. We’ve got the money to do it,” Roy said.