![]() ![]() Inside the White House, aides acknowledged that Biden may take some blowback from progressives over any eventual debt ceiling compromise. “We’re buying into an argument that government spending is a problem and needs to be brought down - which I don’t love,” said Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to Sen. But progressives warn it would also undermine the president’s economic record, and amount to a betrayal of Democrats who trusted the White House’s insistence it had learned the hard lessons of past debt limit showdowns. Such a deal would effectively get Biden through the 2024 election without having to negotiate over the debt ceiling again. ![]() ![]() And they want a debt ceiling extension of at least two years as well. It also wants to limit any spending caps deal to as little as two years, a far shorter duration than the decade sought by Republicans, and has rejected an initial proposal to set the caps hundreds of billions of dollars lower than current levels. In exchange, the White House is demanding that the GOP drop its effort to roll back parts of Biden’s key legislative accomplishments, like the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as take student debt relief off the table. And ahead of a third meeting with McCarthy, Biden suggested he’d consider restrictions on certain safety net programs for the poor. They’ve floated clawing back billions of dollars in pandemic aid once seen as critical to the agenda. Over the past several days, White House aides have signaled openness to imposing caps on government spending through the end of Biden’s term. To this day, the White House argues it is not actually negotiating over the debt ceiling, but merely having budget negotiations with a debt ceiling component attached.īut that appears to be a distinction without an actual difference. The memory of the 2011 debt ceiling deal still looms for many - and the president and his team had insisted they would never do something like that again. The rising discontent on the left complicates an extremely delicate negotiating period for Biden, who is slated to meet Tuesday with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other congressional leaders before leaving for a weeklong international trip to Japan and Australia. They keep the economy hobbled and that means fewer people with jobs, fewer mamas with access to child care, fewer sick people who can get well and get back to work.” The 2011 budget caps, which were negotiated by Biden as vice president in the Obama administration to get out of a similar debt ceiling standoff, “extended high unemployment for five years,” Warren said. She’s not happy about the idea of budget caps, either, calling them a “self-inflicted wound.” “I’m very concerned about any efforts to just tangle aid recipients in red tape in the hope that they will be choked to death rather than get the help they need,” Warren said about the idea of additional work requirements. The unease by progressives about both, she said, has been conveyed to the White House. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) described herself as “very concerned” about the direction of the talks, including mentions of a long-term cap on spending and additional work requirements. ![]()
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