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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is internet hosting the Democratic congressional leaders Tuesday on the White Home as they face a brand new period of divided authorities in Washington, staring down a debt ceiling disaster, the Russian warfare in Ukraine and their very own celebration priorities operating up towards a brand new Home Republican majority looking forward to confrontation.
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Forward of the afternoon assembly, Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer mentioned the Home Republicans are risking a doubtlessly devastating debt default that will cascade throughout the economic system hitting American households.
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“We’re now witnessing the Home GOP recklessly flirt with default,” Schumer mentioned.
Schumer mentioned Democrats stand united in working to boost the restrict and cease Republicans from imposing draconian finances cuts to federal applications. “If the MAGA GOP stops paying our nation’s payments, Individuals pay the value,” he mentioned, referring to these Republicans allied with the Trump-era Make American Nice Once more motion.
The approaching showdown has a well-known precedent — somewhat greater than a decade in the past, a brand new technology of “tea celebration” Home Republicans swept to energy, desperate to confront the Obama administration to slash federal spending and curb the nation’s ballooning debt load. As vice chairman on the time, Biden was central to these negotiations, however the Home Republicans and the White Home might by no means strike a deal, inflicting a fiscal disaster. This go round, Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress are in no temper to dealer offers with a brand new period of hardline Republicans led by the Freedom Caucus.
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Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy is raring to push Biden to the negotiating desk, hoping to make good on the guarantees the GOP chief made to holdouts throughout his marketing campaign to change into Home speaker to pare federal spending again to fiscal 2022 ranges, which might be a large 8% finances lower.
The White Home has not but invited McCarthy for a gathering, however says it plans to take action quickly.
“We’ve seen this film earlier than,” mentioned Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a member of Republican management.
Within the Senate, Republicans seem greater than keen to face apart, for now, letting McCarthy and the Home GOP take the lead in talks with Biden — and cautious of embracing the type of cuts to federal spending the Home GOP needs however which have little probability of turning into regulation.
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Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell mentioned Tuesday, “I believe it’s solely cheap for the brand new speaker and his group to place spending discount on the desk.”
McConnell mentioned of McCarthy’s yet-unscheduled-session with Biden: “I want him nicely and in speaking to the president. That’s the place an answer lies.”
The afternoon assembly between Biden and the Democratic leaders comes because the White Home is throwing open its doorways for a brand new lawmaker reception later Tuesday night, although many Home Republicans say they won’t attend as a result of they can’t abide by the administration’s requirement for guests to be vaccinated towards the coronavirus.
On the debt, the Treasury Depart notified Congress final week that the nation has reached its borrowing capability, $31 trillion, and might want to improve the restrict to have the ability to proceed paying off its already accrued payments. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has launched extraordinary measures that are routinely used at occasions like this, however that may run out in June.
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Debt has been climbing for years, the final time the federal finances didn’t carry red-ink deficits was through the Clinton years. As an alternative, the George W. Bush administration noticed the debt skyrocket because of tax cuts and the wars abroad. Debt grew once more within the Barack Obama period particularly within the aftermath of the Nice Recession.
The 2011 negotiations centered round a $1-for-$1 tradeoff of spending cuts for brand spanking new debt, however the sides might by no means conform to the scale and scope of reductions in federal well being care, army, infrastructure and different accounts. Thus far, the Biden administration has refused to have interaction with Home Republicans.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the chairman of the Finance Committee, mentioned his celebration realized its classes when negotiating with Republicans on the debt ceiling in 2011.
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“We all know what occurred. It nearly threw the economic system into the ditch,” Wyden mentioned. “That’s the lesson.”
One concept being mentioned has been for Congress to determine some type of debt panel, very like the failed “Tremendous Committee” that attempted within the aftermath of the 2011 talks to provide you with agreed upon methods to chop federal spending.
“The underside line is, can we discover a pathway ahead earlier than all of the theatrics begin?” mentioned Sen. Joe Manchin, the conservative West Virginia Democrat who is understood for straddling the celebration traces. “We all know we’re going to go it. It’s only a matter of how a lot ache you need to put folks by means of.”
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Related Press writers Josh Boak, Kevin Freking and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
