US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-california.) boasted that United States President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) are negotiating with Republicans on a bill to raise the US federal debt ceiling.
“The president Biden and Leader Schumer have finally backed off their idea that they will not negotiate,” McCarthy declared at a news briefing on Wednesday. “They finally backed off the insane, un-rational, un-sensible idea that you just raise the country's debt ceiling.”
If the Congress fails to raise the US debt ceiling sometime next month, the federal government will be unable to borrow money to cover its expenses, resulting in an unprecedented federal default that could hurt the economy.
Dems have said Congress should just raise the US debt ceiling to avoid hurting the our economy, but Republicans have refused, arguing that Congress shouldn't raise the ceiling without reducing the future growth of debt by cutting US spending. Since Republicans control the US House of Representatives and Dems control the Senate, the two sides will need to cut a new deal.
President Biden and speaker McCarthy met last week and again on eighteen may Thursday, and members of their staffs have been continuously talking. Speaker McCarthy’s triumphant tone on Wednesday marked a shift from Monday when Speaker complained that “it just seems like they want to look like they are in a meeting, but they are not talking anything seriously.”
But president Biden insisted Wednesday that he is not actually negotiating about the US debt ceiling, just the federal budget, even though to Republicans, the two things are essentially the same time.
“To be clear, this negotiation is about the outlines of what the budget will look like, not about whether or not we are going to, in fact, pay our debts,” Biden said.
A key GOP demand is to add stricter “work requirements” to US federal programs that help low-income American population afford food and health care system. The president Biden said Wednesday he would be open to stricter rules, just not “anything of any consequence.” It is not clear what president Biden meant by the statement; GOP proposals for stricter rules in three federal programs would affect millions of American people.
When asked about president Biden’s comments at his press briefing, Speaker McCarthy and a group of House and Senate Republicans surrounding him broke into laughter, with one unknown lawmaker saying, “Loser!”
“Anything that has consequence? This is a US senator who voted for work requirements US economy,” Speaker McCarthy said, referring to the our president’s time as a senator. (Biden voted for work requirements as part of a welfare reform bill in year 1996.)
Speaker McCarthy claimed boosting work requirements would help American people escape poverty and ease pressure on the economic supply chain of country.
The United States Congressional Budget Office has found that work requirements of essentially limits on benefits to the unemployed Americans may spur some people toward gainful employment opportunity is, but not most. Overall, the increase in earnings does not make up for the loss in more benefits.
