Biden tempts Republican moderates into deadlock on debt ceiling

President Biden on Wednesday tried to drive a wedge between Republicans in their escalating dispute over spending and debt, effectively reaching out to moderates in hopes of convincing them to disengage from Speaker Kevin McCarthy rather than risk a national bankruptcy that could jeopardize the economy. a downward spiral.

Appearing in a competitive suburb with a vulnerable Republican in the House in his sights, Mr Biden accused Mr McCarthy of pursuing a radical strategy at the behest of his party’s “extreme” wing loyal to former President Donald J. Trump, putting the country in economic jeopardy in a way that he said reasonable Republicans of his own time in the Senate would not have done.

“They have taken control of the house,” Mr. Biden said of this wing to a friendly audience at SUNY Westchester Community College in New York’s Hudson Valley. “They have a speaker who has his job because he gave in to the, I quote, MAGA element of the party,” he added.

Those far-right Republicans, Biden said, are “literally, not figuratively, holding the economy hostage by threatening to default on our nation’s debt, debt that we’ve already incurred, that we’ve already incurred for the past few hundred years. unless we give in to their threats and demands.”

The trip, at least in part, seemed designed to peel off even a few House Republicans to force the speaker’s hand. Legislation that Mr. McCarthy pushed through the House last month, which tied a debt ceiling increase to significant spending cuts, passed with just one vote to spare, so even a relatively minor mutiny would undermine Mr. make McCarthy difficult.

Mr. Biden singled out Representative Mike Lawler, a local Republican congressman who sat in the front row of the audience on Wednesday, praising him as a more rational member of his party. “Mike is on the other team,” Mr. Biden said, “but you know what? Mike is the kind of guy that when I was in Congress, I was sort of a Republican that I was used to hanging out with. He is not one of these MAGA Republicans.”

The president’s trip came a day after he hosted Mr. McCarthy and other congressional leaders at the White House to discuss the crisis. The session produced no breakthroughs, but leaders agreed to have their staffs meet every day and reconvene on Friday.

The federal government has hit its $31.4 trillion statutory debt ceiling, and the Treasury Department estimates there will be no more ways to avoid default by June 1. Unless Congress does something by then, the country will default on its obligations for the first time in history, with potentially devastating consequences for an already fragile economy. Mr. McCarthy insists that any increase in the debt ceiling be linked to spending cuts, while Mr. Biden rejects any link between the two; he has agreed to negotiate deficit controls separately.

The annual deficit reached $1.375 trillion last year, up from $983 billion in 2019, the last year before the Covid-19 pandemic led to massive aid spending, and is expected to double in the next decade. Even aside from the debt ceiling linkage, the two sides differ drastically on how to handle the red ink. Mr Biden has proposed a budget that would reduce projected deficits by nearly $3 trillion in 10 years by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, while Mr McCarthy’s plan would reduce deficits by $4.8 trillion in a decade would decrease, largely due to cuts in discretionary programs.

Speaking to a swing-voting New York suburb, Mr. Biden seemed to have two audiences: voters outside the capitol who may not pay as much attention to the debate and Mr. Lawler. Lawler, a 36-year-old former political operative and first-term Republican, is a clear target for the White House to try to influence. He ousted Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, then the chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign operation, in a district that Mr. Biden won by 10 percentage points.

In Washington, Mr. Lawler has positioned himself as a serious moderate, breaking with his party over a number of cultural issues while supporting Mr. McCarthy’s debt ceiling and spending proposal. Both parties consider him one of the most vulnerable Republicans in 2024, and the Democrats are already lining up millions of dollars and potential candidates to defeat him.

Right now, Mr. Lawler seems to be walking a careful line between his party’s leaders and the president. When the White House reached out with an invitation to the event that many in the GOP would have shunned, he promptly accepted. In media interviews before and after the speech, Mr. Lawler that he would not support a default. But he also chastised Mr Biden for not reaching out to Mr McCarthy sooner and pushed for broad cuts.

At this community college, just a few hundred yards from the border of his congressional district, Mr. Lawler nodded politely when the president mentioned him as he took the podium Wednesday. “I don’t want to get him in trouble by saying something nice about him — or negative about him,” Mr Biden said jokingly. “But thanks for coming, Mike. Thank you for being here. That’s how we used to do it.”

Speaking to reporters after the speech, Mr Lawler said he and Mr Biden had a “very cordial” and “very candid” behind-the-scenes conversation ahead of the event. “He told me he wants me to know he didn’t come here to put pressure on me in any way,” said Mr. Lawler, who seemed to welcome the president’s comments on stage that he was not a MAGA Republican. . “You heard his comments today. I don’t think he put too much pressure on me.”

Mr. Lawler reaffirmed his vote for Mr. McCarthy’s legislation. “We need to get our fiscal house in order,” he said. “And so yes, spending should be linked to the debt ceiling. And that is the message I conveyed to the president.” But he repeatedly called for a bipartisan solution.

Local Democrats were frustrated that the president was courting Mr. Lawler instead of attacking him. Mondaire Jones, a former congressman who is positioning himself to challenge Mr. Lawler next year, said after the speech that Mr. Lawler had done nothing to justify being described as “not a MAGA Republican.” Mr Jones added: “He has voted for everything that Kevin McCarthy has asked him to vote for at the request of the MAGA extremists.”

Indeed, Republicans seized on Mr. Biden’s remarks to counter the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s attacks on the GOP congressman. “Despite the DCCC’s repeated lies regarding Congressman Lawler’s positions,” the National Republican Congressional Committee said in a statement, “Lawler is a pragmatic member of Congress seeking to negotiate and avoid a government default.”