WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Wednesday, a White House official confirmed to NBC News, amid the Republicans’ standoff over the roof of the Debt to the Democrats.
McCarthy first announced the meeting to discuss the debt ceiling in a CBS «Face the Nation» interview the previous Sunday. The Speaker of the House said that the Republicans would not allow the US to default and expressed his interest in reaching an agreement with the President.
“I know the president said he doesn’t want to have any discussion, but I think it’s very important that our entire government is designed to find a compromise,” McCarthy said. «I want to find a reasonable way that we can raise the debt ceiling but take control of this rampant spending.»
The US government reached its statutory debt limit earlier this month. The Treasury Department said at the time that it had begun resorting to «extraordinary measures» to pay the bills and that there is a June 5 deadline to act or risk default.
House Republicans have been demanding spending cuts in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling and avoiding a US debt default. Party leaders, however, have not come up with a unified plan to cut spending, complicating McCarthy’s task of passing a bill with his narrow majority.
The White House previously said there will be no negotiations and that Congress must allow the government to pay its bills. Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have endorsed Biden, demanding that McCarthy introduce his plan and pass it in the House before any discussion can take place.
“I will not let anyone use the full faith and credit of the United States as a bargaining chip,” Biden said last week, in his first major economic remarks of the year, arguing that the GOP proposals would lead to higher inflation.
McCarthy quickly chided Biden’s stance, saying he is «disappointed» but remains determined in his demand for spending cuts.
“Here’s the leader of the free world banging the table, being irresponsible, saying ‘no, no, no, just raise the limit, make us spend more.’ No. That’s not how adults act,» McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill last week. «Let’s find common ground and eliminate wasteful spending to protect hard-working taxpayers.»
“So the longer you wait, the more you put America’s fiscal risk at stake,” added the Speaker of the House.