Biden and lawmakers are postponing a meeting as the debt ceiling talks progress
Biden‘s Cold War Negotiations with the White House: Why spending should not go unnoticed during the Reagan and Obama eras
Democrats have agreed to cap spending as part of previous bipartisan deals to increase the debt limit, but in the discussions now they are pressing Republicans to discuss tax increases as part of any framework.
That has not always been the case. Republicans have pointed out in recent weeks that, as a senator, Mr. Biden railed against budget deficits during the Reagan presidency. In 1984, he presented a proposal to freeze federal spending for a year. The plan went nowhere, despite the fact that he said it would “shock the living devil” in the Senate.
When he was negotiating for the Obama administration, Vice President Joe Biden tied the budget issues to the debt limit. Mr. Biden said in comments to reporters on Tuesday that he only did that because he was told to.
“I got a call that morning at 6 o’clock saying that the Republican leader would only talk to me, and there was no time left,” he said. I got instructions from the White House to settle it. That was my job. I had no notice at all.
In the spring of 2011, Mr. Biden and a bipartisan group of congressional leaders met frequently to hash out their differences. In early meetings, the group gathered at Blair House, where foreign dignitaries stay when they visit Washington. The summer of 2010 was the year when negotiations broke off because Republicans wouldn’t agree to raise taxes on the wealthy. Mr. Obama had agreed to spending cuts but was unable to raise taxes, so he had to explain to the Democrats why he didn’t raise taxes.
McCarthy has opposed that repeatedly, and Johnson told reporters it is “absolutely off the table.” He agreed with the timelines for acting, but said that it would be terrible for the country.
When the deadline for the government to pay its bills draws closer, some are floating the idea of a short-term extension of the debt limit.
Meetings with the Senate Finance Committee on the Biden-McCahn Debt-Limit Problem and the State-Sensitive Causality Problem
Graves said he has talked to senior Biden administration officials like climate envoy John Kerry, who agree about the need for permitting reforms. He said there is a group of House and Senate Democrats — including West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin — who support changes to the current system. Graves thought the proposal in the GOP bill was a good start.
One senior Democratic aide told NPR that pulling back COVID funds that haven’t been spent is something the president has said he is open to including in a deal.
According to Rep. Graves, who was shepherded the House GOP debt ceiling bill, negotiations could possibly find common ground around these four areas.
“we’re cautiously optimistic,” said Mike Johnson, a member of McCarthy’s leadership team. On the staff talks continuing, Johnson said “those are necessary sequential steps in making it all happen and everybody knows that so the fact that the staffs are still meeting and negotiating is really important.”
“This is a positive development. Meetings are progressing. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private meetings, said that it wasn’t the right time to bring it back to principals.
A source familiar with the meetings told NPR that Biden and the congressional leaders postponed their gathering because did not want interrupt the progress that was being made.
Biden was set to meet McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the White House to continue talks on lifting the nation’s debt limit, which expires as soon as early June. An meeting on Tuesday ended with no resolution.
