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WASHINGTON—House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that he looks forward to discussing “reasonable and responsible ways in which the debt ceiling can be raised” with President Joe Biden. Elected to office.
California Republican McCarthy says the White House denies linking the two issues as the government seeks to avoid a potentially catastrophic financial default, but he believes that spending cuts and the debt ceiling will not be possible. He said he would like to work on raising the
The speaker promised that cuts to Social Security and Medicare would be out of consideration.
“I know the president said he didn’t want to discuss[the cuts]but it’s very clear that the whole government is designed to find compromises,” McCarthy said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I want to sit down with you and make an agreement that we can move forward to take a path that balances. is not.”
Asked if he would make any guarantees, McCarthy said he “wouldn’t default” but suggested the declaration would depend on the willingness of Biden and Democrats to negotiate.
The White House on Sunday confirmed Wednesday’s meeting on “various issues.” Biden said he looked forward to “strengthening our working relationship” with McCarthy and asked about the chairman’s plans for spending, cutting IRS funding that Republicans passed this year. The first House bill to do so would eventually increase the deficit, he said.
“The president asked House Speaker McCarthy whether he intends to fulfill his constitutional obligation to prevent the country from defaulting, as every other House and Senate leader in American history has done,” the White House said. “He would emphasize that we cannot take the economic security of all Americans hostage and force unpopular cuts on working families.”
McCarthy was elected Speaker early on January 7 in a historic 15th post-midnight ballot, overcoming resistance from his own position and tensions testing the new Republican majority’s ability to govern. bottom.
The long-awaited White House meeting word came at a time in Washington’s divided government, with a debt ceiling crisis brewing and House Republicans poised for confrontation.
McCarthy is eager to push Biden to the negotiating table, which he did to the holdout during the Republican leader’s campaign to be the speaker to bring federal spending back to 2022 budget levels. We hope to deliver on our promise, which is a significant 8% budget cut. .
The White House has made it clear that Mr. Biden will not accept policy concessions in exchange for the removal of the debt ceiling, the country’s borrowing power. The US hit that limit earlier this month, and the Treasury Department rolled out “special measures” to avoid a possible default for at least another few months.
Biden himself scoffed at the idea of negotiating spending cuts, telling Democratic congressional leaders last week that Republicans are “very serious about cutting Social Security and Medicare.”
On Sunday, when asked whether McCarthy would impose cuts on those programs, he said, “Let’s get them off the table.” When asked about the possibility of … I would like to examine all the departments. ”
Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the Democratic head of the House Armed Services Committee, said his party supports a clear financial plan for the future but Republicans have been disingenuous in tackling the issue. .
“We shouldn’t negotiate whether the bill should be paid. That’s our position,” Smith told Fox News Sunday. “Right now, Republicans don’t have a plan. Their plan, led by Republican extremists, is to complain about spending, not to raise the debt ceiling, but really, ‘This is what we’re going to cut.’ am.
The upcoming debt limit showdown has a familiar precedent.
A little over a decade ago, a new generation of Tea Party House Republicans seized power and stood up to the Obama administration, eager to cut federal spending and reduce the nation’s ballooning debt burden. Biden, then vice president, was at the center of those negotiations. But House Republicans and the White House were never able to reach a deal, provoking a financial crisis. I am not in the mood to broker a transaction for
McCarthy said he hoped the president would listen again, pointing to Biden’s previous experience in trying to negotiate spending cuts.
“I think the president would be happy to come to an agreement together,” McCarthy said.
In an interview with the Associated Press last weekend, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she expected Congress would eventually vote to raise the limit. He said it would be “extremely irresponsible” for the Republican Party to call for spending cuts in the United States and risked “spontaneous disaster” for the global economy.
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