Can Biden Hold Out on Negotiating Debt Limit Terms?

Haisten Willis writes for the Washington Examiner about President Biden’s approach to the federal debt ceiling.

President Joe Biden wants to campaign for reelection, but he’ll have to survive the debt ceiling showdown first.

The same day Biden announced for 2024, the Congressional Budget Office released its score for the Republican-led Limit, Save, Grow Act, unleashing a war of words from both political parties.

The act would save $4.8 trillion through fiscal 2023, according to the CBO, with $545 billion of that coming through interest payment savings alone.

“The House deserves credit for putting forward a reasonable proposal that would help the Federal Reserve fight inflation in the near term and generate significant savings at a time when they’re desperately needed,” reads an analysis from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “Additional changes would be needed to hold debt to manageable levels, including by addressing rising health care costs and trust fund solvency. We suggest including a fiscal commission to deal with the long-term drivers of the debt.”

While the analysis also calls for raising the debt ceiling as quickly as possible, the act itself got a much different reception from the Biden White House.

Dubbing it the “Cut Growth Act,” White House communications director Ben LaBolt excoriated the bill.

“Speaker McCarthy has cut a deal with the most extreme MAGA elements of his party to accelerate taking food assistance from hundreds of thousands of older Americans and to carve out one industry from his draconian cuts without making a single change to provisions that will strip away healthcare services for veterans, cut access to Meals on Wheels, eliminate healthcare coverage for millions of Americans, and ship manufacturing jobs overseas,” LaBolt said.

That was one of several statements the White House released Wednesday morning describing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) proposal as extreme and damaging to the poor. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called McCarthy’s plan cruel and dangerous. The House passed it later that day.