WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden “looks forward” to meeting with Kevin McCarthy, the new Republican House speaker, to discuss a variety of issues, but negotiation on raising the U.S. debt limit is off the table, the White House said Friday night.
“Like the president has said many times, raising the debt ceiling is not a negotiation; it is an obligation of this country and its leaders to avoid economic chaos,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement, which did not provide a date for the meeting.
“Congress has always done it, and the president expects them to do their duty once again. That is not negotiable,” Jean-Pierre added.
Republicans who control the House intend to use the debt ceiling deadline as leverage to extract deep spending cuts from the White House and congressional Democrats. Biden’s position is that U.S. credit is too important to haggle over.
Earlier Friday, Biden said he would discuss the issue with McCarthy and raise it during his Feb. 7 State of the Union address, warning that a financial “calamity” would occur if the U.S. defaults on its obligations.
“If we don’t meet our national debt and renege for the first time, we have a calamity that exceeds anything that’s ever happened financially in the United States,” Biden said at the White House after a meeting with a bipartisan group of mayors from around the country.
“The debt we’re paying on — and we’re going to have a little discussion about that with the new majority leader of the House — has accumulated over 200 years,” the president said.
McCarthy in a tweet Friday said he had accepted the president’s invitation to talk about “a responsible debt ceiling increase to address irresponsible government spending.”
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the federal debt limit had been reached and her department had begun using special measures to avoid a U.S. payments default. Last week, Yellen said the steps wouldn’t likely be exhausted before early June.
“Now the big debate, and I’ll be honest with you, and I’m going to talk about it in the State of the Union, is a fundamental disagreement on what we should do to cut,” Biden said Friday. “It’s not just cutting. What do you raise? What taxes do people pay? How do they pay their taxes, and do they pay it fairly?”
In her statement, Jean-Pierre pointed out that congressional Republicans have discussed cuts in Social Security and Medicare. “We are going to have a clear debate on two different visions for the country – one that cuts Social Security, and one that protects it – and the president is happy to discuss that with the speaker.”
In a video released earlier Friday, former President Donald Trump urged fellow Republicans not to “cut a single penny” from the entitlement programs. At the same time, he has been encouraging Republicans to use the debt limit to extract concessions from Democrats.
