The White House is trying to fight Republicans on their own turf as the debt ceiling battle rages on.
Biden administration officials are making GOP-like arguments against Republican budget ideas, saying they would cut police and border security funding, hurt American manufacturing, and help China.
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"President Biden’s budget would continue two trends he’s leading: bringing jobs back from overseas and making health care more affordable for families across the country," reads a defiant dispatch from White House spokesman Andrew Bates. "Unfortunately, Republicans have shown they want to kill thousands of manufacturing jobs and cost millions of Americans their health coverage — disproportionately in red states."
While the House Budget Committee has not released a budget yet, the staunchly conservative Freedom Caucus has, which Bates promised would "be a windfall for China and kill tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs President Biden is creating in red states."
The Treasury Department has unleashed measures to pay the country's debts after the $31.4 trillion ceiling was reached in January, and the two sides have until this summer to reach an agreement.
The GOP aims to use its leverage as the party in control of the House to lower spending in exchange for raising the limit, while Biden wants a clean increase with no concessions. The president released his own budget March 9, which Republicans swiftly rejected.
If the two parties do not agree to a debt ceiling increase, the negative economic ramifications would be vast and wide-reaching. Even a close call could have consequences, as a similar showdown during Barack Obama's presidency resulted in a credit downgrade.
In the meantime, Biden and House Republicans are engaged in a fierce messaging battle to claim superiority. House Freedom Caucus leader Scott Perry (R-PA) dismissed the White House's criticism as being disconnected from reality.
“Another obscene clutching of pearls from an out-of-touch administration hell bent on further gaslighting the American people instead of taking responsibility for the fiscal insanity and horrific foreign policy failures they created while having sole control of the House, Senate, and White House," he said in a statement.
Nonpartisan budget hawks have expressed disappointment in proposals released so far, with Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget President Maya MacGuineas saying Biden's is "by no means an award-winning budget, but the president deserves at least a participation trophy."
Republicans are traditionally known as the party that wants limited government spending, which was particularly pronounced during the tea party movement 10 years ago and to some extent in the Freedom Caucus today. The latter group is set to release more than 500 pages of proposed spending cuts.
Democrats, on the other hand, tend to be more comfortable with government spending, which may help explain why the White House is focused on spending that Republican voters like.
"Speaker McCarthy and his extreme MAGA caucus have refused to put out a budget," press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. "All we’ve heard from them is a list of devastating cuts to law enforcement and border security and proposals to take healthcare away from Americans and raise healthcare and child care costs. All to pay for their tax giveaway to the superwealthy and corporations.”
Those attacks include the national debt, as the White House claims Republican proposals would add $3 trillion to the deficit.
Both parties have embraced deficit spending in recent years, according to a CRFB analysis, though the group says presidential leadership is needed to enact real change.
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Former U.N. Ambassador and 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticized the bipartisan spending consensus during a recent New Hampshire speech, saying, "They love wasting our money."
The budget proposed by Biden would raise the deficit by $19 trillion through 2023 and the debt-to-gross domestic product ratio from 98% to 110%, blowing past the record set just after World War II. But with both parties agreeing not to slash Social Security or Medicare and the Biden administration going on offense over budget cuts, it remains to be seen whether a meaningful alternative will emerge before the summer.