The Biden administration is reportedly refusing to negotiate on the debt ceiling crisis, according to sources close to the matter.
Administration officials said on Monday that President Joe Biden has no plans to negotiate with Republicans over the debt limit, even after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that Congress may only have until June 1 to avoid a disastrous economic downturn.
The @HouseGOP debt ceiling plan to limit spending $5 trillion over 10 yrs: return fed bureaucracy to pre-Covid levels, end unfair bailout of student loans, require able-bodied Americans to work, & end corporate crony “green” handouts to China. #LimitSaveGrow #ShrinkDCGrowAmerica pic.twitter.com/PH9Ug1mKZD
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) April 28, 2023
“If you need to hear again that it’s your responsibility to address the debt ceiling without conditions and a ransom,” a senior administration official told Politico on condition of anonymity, “then he can say that again.”
The approach reflects the White House’s belief that they cannot create a model for the opposition to use the debt ceiling as a political negotiating chip. It also shows continued confidence in the fact that Biden still has the upper hand in a debt ceiling staredown and that a crisis point was only a matter of when, not if, the two sides would come to blows.
For months, the president has vowed not to engage in debt ceiling negotiations, calling Republicans’ demands for concessions “hostage taking” that might damage the country’s global reputation and economic stability.
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also chimed in by declaring that “no clean debt ceiling” increase would ultimately make it through the chamber after passing a GOP-led bill of spending cuts tied to a debt limit increase in the House last week.
McCarthy, who is leading a congressional delegation in Israel this week, said on Monday that Biden has “refused to do his job” while “the clock is ticking.”
Meanwhile, senior Biden adviser Gene Sperling defended the president’s refusal to communicate with Republicans by saying that no one has “the right to say that we want to have a discussion where it’s either my way or we will put the United States in default for the first time in our history.”
“[McCarthy] does not give him or really anyone the right to say that we want to have a discussion where it’s either my way or we will put the United States in default for the first time in our history,” Sperling added. “No one should do that, let me be clear, not Democrat or Republican, not liberal or conservative. And since 2011, everyone has understood this.”
