US President Joe Biden on Sunday called the latest Republican offers in debt ceiling talks “unacceptable” but said he would be willing to cut spending along with fiscal adjustments to reach a deal.
Speaking to the press in Hiroshima, Japan, after a meeting of G7 leaders, Biden suggested that some Republicans in Congress are willing to make the US default on its debt so that the disastrous results prevent him from winning re-election in 2024.
There are less than two weeks left until June 1, when the Treasury Department has warned that the federal government may be unable to pay all its debts. That would trigger a default that could throw financial markets into chaos and send interest rates skyrocketing.
Biden said he would speak to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy during his flight back from Hiroshima and hoped he had been waiting to deal directly with him.
“A lot of what they’ve already proposed is just, frankly, unacceptable,” Biden said. “It’s time for Republicans to accept that you can’t get to a bipartisan deal alone, only on your partisan terms. They have to move too.”
The talks have become increasingly heated over the past two days. Democratic and Republican negotiators said Friday’s meetings on Capitol Hill yielded no breakthrough and the two sides did not meet on Saturday.
Instead, each has once again characterized the other’s position as extremist.
“Unfortunately, the White House has backed down,” McCarthy told reporters on Saturday.
Biden said he believed he had the authority to invoke the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows him to raise the debt ceiling without Congress, but it was not clear there would be enough time left to try to use that unproven legal theory to avoid the default.
A source familiar with the negotiations said Republicans had proposed increasing defense spending while cutting overall spending. The source also said House Republicans wanted to extend tax cuts passed under then-President Donald Trump, which would add $3.5 trillion to the federal debt.
The source said the Biden administration had proposed keeping discretionary non-defense spending unchanged for next year.
Another person familiar with the talks said the latest Republican proposal included “steep” cuts over a longer period of time than recent budget deals, as well as a variety of measures that irritate Democrats, such as work requirements for aid, cuts to food assistance and less money for the Internal Revenue Service.
The person said Republicans had also rejected measures proposed by Democrats to increase revenue, including drug payment reforms and closing “tax loopholes.”
Biden returns to Washington this Sunday after cutting back on his trip to Asia to focus on debt ceiling talks.
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