House and Senate Democrats are refusing to say what budget cuts should be considered as part of negotiations between President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on raising the debt limit and setting new spending levels.

Democrats say that budget cuts are likely to be part of any budget negotiations, but they refuse to say where spending can be reduced and are sticking by demands that budget changes be isolated from raising the debt ceiling.

“We have a federal budget process in which a Republican-led House and a Democratic-led Senate should, through the federal budget process, find common ground on fiscal policy,” said Sen. Jon Ossoff, Georgia Democrat. “That includes spending priorities, it includes opportunities to trim or to cut for fiscal sustainability.”

Several other Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate similarly refused to elaborate on what spending cuts would be acceptable.

“I think it’s an incredibly important conversation here in Washington, D.C. to talk about spending, talk about debts and deficits, we do that every year,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, California Democrat. “America cannot get close to default, we’ve never done that, we cannot get there.”  

Democrats are clear, however, that any budget cuts should take place outside of raising the debt limit.

“The notion that we’re just not going to pay our bills and then sometime talk about spending in the future, that’s insane,” said Rep. Ted Lieu, California Democrat. “We just have to pay our bills.”

Amid their demands for a clean debt-limit hike, Democrats are also split on how long the ceiling should be raised, or how much. The current limit is $31.4 trillion.

Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told The Washington Times he favored hiking the debt limit to a date after the 2024 election.

“It’s got to go out two years [past the election]… We can’t be going through hostage-taking constantly,” said Mr. Peters. “The more time we have so we don’t have people acting irresponsibly, and causing chaos in the markets, and raising the costs for Americans, we should take that option.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, said the debt ceiling should be hiked to “whatever it takes” and that tax increases on the rich should be part of any budget deal — a demand Republicans are likely to reject.

“If the Republicans are serious about reducing the national debt, they would start with requiring billionaires and billionaire corporations to pay more to help this government run,” said Mrs. Warren, Massachusetts Democrat.

Still, some Democrats are also opposed to the idea of capping future spending growth — which Republicans say is a red line for any spending and debt limit deal.

“We’re not doing spending caps,” Sen. Brian Schatz, Hawaii Democrat, said with a laugh. “We’re just definitely not doing that.”

The responses indicate the complicated path forward for Mr. Biden and House Republicans as they seek to avert a default on June 1. Mr. Biden met with congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday about the borrowing cap, but no breakthrough was forthcoming.

Instead, the White House agreed to initiate separate negotiations with House Republicans over government spending. While Democrats say the negotiations are separate from the debt ceiling, Republicans say an agreement on spending levels would likely open the door to raising the debt limit.

“That’s how these things usually happen,” said a senior aide to GOP leadership. “Staff sits in a room and starts negotiating a deal and then it all gets paired together in the end. If Republicans get a firm commitment on reducing spending, boosting energy production, and imposing some work requirements on welfare, there is no reason not to hike the debt ceiling.”

Since January, the Treasury Department has undertaken “extraordinary measures” to stave off default after the government hit its borrowing capacity. Those emergency tactics give the government enough room to cover only day-to-day expenses.

Evidence is already emerging that investors’ confidence in public debt is shrinking.

On Thursday, the Treasury sold $50 billion of four-week securities at an interest rate of 5.84%. That was the highest interest rate on sales of U.S. debt since 2000. The $50 billion bonds are set to mature on June 6, five days after a potential default.

Last week, the Treasury sold bonds set to mature on May 30 at a rate of 3.83%.

• Haris Alic can be reached at halic@washingtontimes.com.

• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.