U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the federal government’s debt limit during a visit to SUNY Westchester Community College Valhalla in Valhalla, Latest York, May 10, 2023.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and House Republicans remained far apart Tuesday, following an hour long meeting on the debt ceiling within the Oval Office that each one 4 top congressional leaders attended.
But attendees said they made progress, including through an agreement to show the multilateral debt limit negotiations into direct one-to-one talks between a detailed ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and two White House aides, on Biden’s behalf.
“That does not imply we will get to an agreement,” McCarthy told reporters after the meeting, but he said there was “now a greater process” overall.
The White House said Biden “directed staff to proceed to fulfill day by day on outstanding issues. He said that he would really like to envision in with leaders later this week by phone, and meet with them upon his return from overseas.”
Biden is “optimistic that there’s a path to a responsible, bipartisan budget agreement if each side negotiate in good faith and recognize that neither side will get every thing it wants,” based on a White House readout of the hourlong meeting.
It was “an excellent and productive meeting,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who noted that it was “more cordial” than a previous meeting last week.
“Having a bipartisan bill in each chambers is the one way … we will avoid default,” Schumer said.
The White House also said Tuesday that it could cancel the second leg of the president’s upcoming international trip, given the fragile state of the debt ceiling negotiations.
Biden is currently scheduled to depart Wednesday for Japan, where he’ll attend the Group of Seven summit. He’ll now return to the U.S. on Sunday immediately after the meeting ends, and is not going to make planned visits to Papua Latest Guinea and Australia, a source aware of Biden’s trip planning told NBC News.
His return will arrange a critical stretch within the efforts to avoid a first-ever default on U.S. debt and forestall major economic damage.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met Tuesday with McCarthy, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. McCarthy said his side could be represented in the continued talks by his close ally within the House, Rep. Garrett Graves, R-La., and that the White House would deploy Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Steve Ricchetti, one among Biden’s closest advisors within the West Wing.
In recent days, stricter work requirements for social safety net programs have emerged as a possible area of compromise.
The work restrictions for social programs are a key demand of House Republicans, who included them in a partisan debt limit bill that passed that chamber last month.
“The general public wants it,” McCarthy said Tuesday, citing a recent ballot initiative in Wisconsin. “Each parties want it, the concept that [Democrats] wish to put us right into a default because they may not work with us on that’s ludicrous to me.”
But the difficulty can also be a red line for some progressive Democrats, a undeniable fact that could scramble the vote math of any debt limit deal that would pass the House.
Increasing the present work requirements for federal assistance programs are “a nonstarter for me,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat and member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on MSNBC.
“It’s just cruel, especially as we see the slowing down of the economy,” Khanna said. “I’m hopeful the president will follow what he said, that we pay our debts after which we are able to negotiate on the budget.”
Over the weekend, Biden answered a matter concerning the work requirements by pointing to his own Senate record of voting for welfare work requirements within the Nineteen Nineties.
“I voted for tougher aid programs, that is within the law now, but for Medicaid it’s a special story,” Biden said Sunday in Rehoboth, Del. “And so I’m waiting to listen to what their exact proposal is.”
A Republican bill passed last month included stricter work requirements not just for Medicaid, but for the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, or TANF, funds, in addition to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program food stamps.
The White House reiterated Tuesday that Biden would reject at the very least a few of the proposed work requirements.
Biden “is not going to accept proposals that may take away people’s health coverage,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. She didn’t say, nonetheless, that he wouldn’t accept changes to food stamps or temporary assistance programs.
This can be a developing story, please check back for updates.