Biden plans to travel Wednesday to a union facility in Maryland to highlight what the White House characterized as “extreme” spending cuts expected in the emerging Republican legislation. The GOP bill could also include a repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, a signature accomplishment last year of the Democratic-led Congress that lowers prescription drug costs and addresses climate change, among many provisions.
Biden’s event in Accokeek, Md., follows a call Tuesday night with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). According to the White House, the three Democrats “discussed House Republicans’ brinkmanship over default and how their recklessness could crash the economy.”
“President Biden, Leader Schumer, and Leader Jeffries agree that we won’t negotiate over default and Republicans should pass a clean bill like they did three times in the previous administration,” said a White House readout of the call, referring to the three occasions Congress raised the debt limit during the Trump administration without Republicans insisting upon conditions being attached.
The statement serves as a blunt message Biden and fellow Democrats are trying to send to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.): Don’t waste your time cobbling together a bill that might clear the House but will go nowhere in the Democratic-led Senate.
McCarthy, meanwhile, is hoping that passing a bill in the House will force Biden to the negotiating table, regardless of its prospects in the Senate.
To even get to that point, however, McCarthy must navigate the push and pull of his caucus. Members of the House Freedom Caucus are trying to add even more conservative priorities to the debt-limit bill. That could pressure more moderate Republicans to vote for proposals that might not be popular in their districts.
With Wednesday’s event, the White House is seeking to draw a contrast between Biden’s venue — the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 77 Training Center, where the White House said he will “be joined by hard-working Americans” — with that of McCarthy, who presented House Republican priorities during a speech on Wall Street on Monday.
Among other things, Biden plans Wednesday to focus on the effect of an advertised GOP provision that would roll back spending levels at most government agencies and cap future budget growth — an issue the White House said Biden discussed in his call Tuesday night with Schumer and Jeffries.
“They discussed what we know about House Republicans’ extreme MAGA spending cuts, which include devastating cuts to veterans and education, taking food assistance and health care away from millions of people, and sending manufacturing overseas — all just to pay for their tax cuts for the super-wealthy and corporations,” the White House readout of the call said.
According to the White House, Biden also reiterated his willingness to discuss budget priorities with McCarthy apart from the debt limit legislation. Republicans have yet to produce a budget plan, which has complicated such talks. Biden unveiled his budget March 9.
On Wednesday, the White House also shared some recent messaging documents that it has distributed among congressional Democrats as the standoff over the debt limit continues.
One cited support from numerous economists and business leaders for raising the debt limit without conditions and included quotes from two unlikely sources to bolster the White House’s position: former Republican presidents Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. Both were quoted warning against brinkmanship over the debt ceiling.
In remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Schumer also cited Trump’s warning.
“For all his terrible flaws … even Donald Trump understood what House Republicans today do not,” Schumer said. “The full faith and credit of the United States must never be taken hostage.”
Washington must borrow money to pay for expenses that both parties have incurred, but it can do so only up to a maximum limit allowed by federal law. Lawmakers periodically must suspend or raise that threshold or the government cannot cover its costs, possibly including interest payments on bonds, triggering a default.
The United States technically reached the debt limit — now set at roughly $31 trillion — earlier this year. That prompted the Biden administration to begin taking special budgetary measures in January so it could continue borrowing. But those moves are temporary solutions meant to buy extra time on Capitol Hill.
The U.S. government has said those measures could run out sometime between June and September.
