2023-05-03 07:20:05
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Joe Biden will not negotiate with Republicans urging spending cuts as a prerequisite for raising debt limits and avoiding a catastrophic default, the White House said on Monday.
“It’s not something we’re negotiating regarding,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Biden has proposed crisis talks with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the White House next week, but he has emphatically rejected tying Republican spending cuts to the usually non-controversial accounting process that would allow the government to raise the debt ceiling.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the federal government would run out of money and default on its debt as early as June 1 without raising the debt ceiling.
Champier said Biden was open to discussing “a process to address budget cuts,” but the debt ceiling issue was another matter.
“Avoiding debt default is the constitutional duty of Congress. Given the time constraints on Congress, it is now clear that the only practical way to avoid debt default is for Congress to suspend the debt ceiling without setting it,” she said.
Among other things, Biden found McCarthy’s proposed budget cuts “irrational” and “dangerous,” Champier said.
Republicans, who narrowly control the House of Representatives, have passed a proposed bill that would agree to boost debt in exchange for slashing budget cuts to a range of government programs. However, the bill has little chance of passing the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate.
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