Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) called on President Joe Biden to continue debt ceiling negotiations with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as the federal government quickly approaches a default on obligations.
The debt ceiling, a policy established by Congress that prevents the federal government from spending beyond the predetermined national debt limit of $31.4 trillion, surpassed the threshold earlier this year. McCarthy and Biden met in early February to discuss possible mechanisms to raise or eliminate the debt ceiling, a move which several House Republicans will not approve without meaningful efforts to limit future federal expenditures.
Manchin, observing that Biden has refused to meet with McCarthy for more than two months, issued a statement on Thursday calling for negotiations to continue.
“America is facing a historic economic crisis brought on by an abject failure to address our exploding national debt, chronic inflation, a looming recession, and the more immediate need to raise the debt ceiling. Our elected leaders must stop with the political games, work together and negotiate a compromise,” the centrist Democrat said. “Instead, it has been more than 78 days since President Biden last met with Speaker McCarthy. This signals a deficiency of leadership, and it must change. The fact is we are long past time for our elected leaders to sit down and discuss how to solve this impending debt ceiling crisis.”
McCarthy recently introduced a budget plan that would return expenditures to fiscal year 2022 levels, raise the debt ceiling for the next year, and limit annual spending growth to 1% over the next decade. The plan mirrors a proposal introduced by the House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of conservative Republicans who said they would consider voting to raise the debt ceiling contingent upon acceptance of their framework.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates countered in a statement that McCarthy is “engaging in dangerous economic hostage taking” and “breaking with the bipartisan norm” he previously followed, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the lawmaker “continues to bumble us toward a catastrophic default.”
Manchin, on the other hand, contended that the refusal from Biden to “even negotiate a reasonable and commonsense compromise” poses considerable risk to the nation.
“I applaud Speaker McCarthy for putting forward a proposal that would prevent default and rein in federal spending. While I do not agree with everything proposed, the fact of the matter is that it is the only bill actually moving through Congress that would prevent default,” he continued. “For the sake of the country, I urge President Biden to come to the table, propose a plan for real and substantive spending cuts and deficit reduction, and negotiate now.”
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Manchin faces re-election next year in his heavily Republican home state. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) have recently sought to create distance between themselves and the White House as they likewise launch re-election campaigns.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen previously warned lawmakers that she was forced to implement “extraordinary measures” to fund federal agencies until early June, after which the government will default on obligations unless lawmakers suspend or raise the debt limit. Present increases in the national debt, however, are unsustainable since the government’s current outstanding obligations are nearing $31.7 trillion, equivalent to more than 120% of the nation’s gross domestic product, while maintenance costs are increasing due to a recent rise in interest rates.