![]() ![]() Tuesday’s White House meeting between Biden and the top four congressional leaders was the second such gathering in eight days, with staffers representing all sides negotiating in the meantime. “The time is of the essence, though we can’t sit around and wait.” And now, you know, every time I’ve wanted to talk to him, I had to force our ways in,” McCarthy said. “The challenge is we went 97 days where he wouldn’t talk to me. Complicating the negotiations, the Senate is scheduled to be out of town next week, the House is expected to be gone the week after that, and Biden is poised to leave Washington on Wednesday for a visit to Japan and Australia - a trip the White House is cutting short in an acknowledgment of the stalemate. The clock is ticking with just two weeks until June 1. LAST WEEK: Takeaways from initial White House debt ceiling meeting.GOP senators dismiss Trump’s calls for a default.Yellen warns of catastrophic default: ‘Time is running out’.McCarthy confirms work requirements are ‘red line’.Five things to know about where negotiations stand.More coverage of the debt ceiling from The Hill: “I don’t think anyone knows how this is going to go down for the next 24 hours - or the next two weeks,” said Rep. The stubborn impasse has led even the veterans of the budget trench wars to wonder where the resolution lies. Democrats counter that GOP leaders are at fault for rejecting a “clean” debt limit hike without conditions. Republicans are hammering President Biden for refusing steep spending cuts in return for raising the government’s borrowing cap. ![]() In making their arguments in the drag-out fight, both parties are seeking to prep the waters of the blame game - and win leverage with the public as the talks continue ahead of a June 1 deadline, when the Treasury Department says its extraordinary measures to prevent a default will run out. “The only group of people in Washington threatening a default are House Republicans. Joe Neguse (Colo.), head of the House Democrats’ messaging arm. “In the last 24, 48 hours or so we’ve heard quite a bit from Speaker McCarthy and some House Republicans as they intend to lay blame for a Republican default that grows more and more precarious by the day,” said Rep. “The House is the only body that has passed a bill to raise the debt limit,” McCarthy said Tuesday after meeting with Biden at the White House.ĭemocrats have rejected that argument, accusing Republicans of holding the economy “hostage” in their refusal to pass a stand-alone debt ceiling hike to avoid a default and put the talks over deficit reduction on a separate track. ![]()
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