ORLANDO, Fla. — Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he is ready to make a deal but he’s waiting for President Biden to invite him to negotiations to raise the nation’s soon-to-expire borrowing limit.
House Republican meeting at a Florida resort this week huddled on legislation that could be used in a debt ceiling tradeoff, including a measure to ramp up domestic energy production and provisions in a yet-to-be-written measure to secure the porous southern border.
The new GOP majority faces Democratic opposition to virtually their entire agenda, but Mr. McCarthy is plotting a way to shoehorn some priorities into the must-pass measure to raise the debt limit.
Mr. McCarthy, speaking to reporters at the retreat, said he won’t simply greenlight an increase in the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt limit. It is set to expire this summer and would leave the Treasury without the ability to pay all the nation’s bills unless Congress acts to increase it.
Mr. McCarthy said the nation’s staggering debt has cranked up inflation that subsequently helped trigger the recent collapse of several regional banks. The borrowing limit should not simply be increased without provisions aimed at decreasing spending and lowering inflation, he said.
“Why are we having a banking crisis? Because government spent too much and created inflation,” Mr. McCarthy said. “So should I ignore it? Should we do exactly what the president is saying [to] just lift the debt ceiling and create more inflation and more banking problems? This should be a wake-up call.”
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The House GOP is ready to make tradeoffs to raise the borrowing limit and Mr. McCarthy told reporters he conveyed that message to Mr. Biden last week at the annual St. Patrick’s Day luncheon in the Capitol. He pitched to Mr. Biden a bill the House plans to take up in the coming weeks that would speed up the permitting process for energy infrastructure projects around the nation.
Perhaps some of the provisions in the House energy bill could be part of the must-pass debt ceiling increase, Mr. McCarthy suggested to Mr. Biden.
“There are a lot of positive things we can do,” Mr. McCarthy said he told the president. “There are things we can do legislatively that could play into a debt ceiling deal. So I was trying to show him a lot of options and things that could get done.”
Border security could also be part of the negotiation or work requirements for those receiving federal aid, which Mr. McCarthy said would increase productivity and help alleviate the national supply chain problem.
Republicans haven’t advanced border security legislation that would win the approval of the entire GOP conference but the party’s lawmakers are eager to secure the southern border and do more to keep out deadly fentanyl, which is killing hundreds of Americans every day.
Republican lawmakers discussed border security at the conference in Orlando and are working on measures that will be unveiled in the coming weeks. Those provisions also could be part of a debt ceiling deal, according to Republicans.
“If he wanted to do something about securing the border, that would stop 300 Americans from dying today and dying tomorrow and dying the next day,” Mr. McCarthy said. “All I’m saying is from my perspective, looking back, Republicans are being very rational, sensible. And I look at everyone across this country and they think we should get to work and work this out.”
Mr. Biden assured Mr. McCarthy that the two would soon sit down and talk about a debt ceiling deal, but Mr. McCarthy has yet to hear from the president following their St. Patrick’s Day lunch together, which took place in a crowded room at the Capitol.
“He said, ‘Yeah, we’ll get together,’” Mr. McCarthy said. “He says that all the time.”
House Republicans and Mr. Biden have roughly three months to strike a deal.
The Treasury has implemented temporary measures to stave off default but those provisions expire in June. Biden officials have said the conditions for lifting the debt ceiling are “non-negotiable,” and Mr. Biden said he told Mr. McCarthy the two will not sit down and talk until the GOP produces a 2024 budget plan.
Republicans have yet to coalesce around such a plan and different GOP factions have pitched their proposals, including the House Freedom Caucus’s demands of dramatic spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit.
Mr. McCarthy said he rejected Mr. Biden’s terms for a sit-down on the debt ceiling when the two met at the luncheon last week.
“He said something about our budget and I said, ‘Do you just want to play the budget game? Or do you want to sit down? Because I know exactly where we can talk,’” Mr. McCarthy said, recalling the conversation.
He told Mr. Biden his position hasn’t changed and Republicans would not take up a clean debt limit increase, nor would they back a new proposal by Mr. Biden to bail out Medicare with tax increases.
Come to the table and talk about a few GOP proposals, he told the president.
“I always bring up different ideas,” Mr. McCarthy said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.