When House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) sits down with President Joe Biden on Wednesday, they may meet in the Oval Office, but the California Republican will be walking into the lion’s den.
McCarthy’s meeting with Biden and the trajectory of the debt ceiling standoff to follow will determine the course of his young speakership.
Congressional Republicans want to use the expiration of the federal debt limit to win concessions on the spending that makes a $31.4 trillion ceiling insufficient in the first place, but it is a blunt instrument. Biden is betting he can use the stalemate to end their small House majority and secure his own reelection in 2024.
PILLOW FIGHT: ANTICLIMACTIC RNC CHAIR RACE ILLUSTRATES GOP STUCK IN LEADERSHIP LIMBO
Republicans did manage to tap the brakes on some federal spending and prevent the creation of new government programs with Capitol Hill majorities while a Democrat was in office, during fights with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But they never got their full cuts, and the government shutdowns under Clinton and the credit downgrade under Obama sapped the GOP lawmakers’ momentum and helped deliver the Democrats a second term in the White House each time.
The question for McCarthy is whether he can get any wins on spending while avoiding Republican political setbacks while leading a smaller majority than either former Speakers Newt Gingrich (R-GA) or John Boehner (R-OH) and not coming off the heels of as big of a midterm election victory. Gingrich also worked with a Republican Senate, though Boehner did not.
Biden began accusing Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare if they won control of the House even before last year’s elections. He is following in his predecessors’ footsteps. Clinton in particular argued Republican Medicare reforms proposed in 1995, which were designed to achieve $270 billion in savings, were meant to pay for their $245 billion tax cut. As vice president, Biden played a leading role in debt ceiling negotiations with Republicans.
Obama initially said he would not negotiate with Republican “hostage-takers” either. The Biden-McCarthy meeting itself suggests some small amount of wiggle room.
“The president said he is happy to talk with anyone with ideas to responsibly lower the deficit, and he’s put forward several proposals to do so by making the rich and big corporations pay their fair share,” White House principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters on Air Force One traveling with the president to New York. “But what’s the Republican plan? Is it to cut Social Security, Medicare? Is it to raise the retirement age? Speaker McCarthy claims he doesn’t want to do what he has previously voted for in this regard. He should share what his plan is.”
Or as Biden himself more slyly put it, “Show me your budget, I’ll show you mine.”
In addition to the GOP’s image of dysfunction, which Democrats have carefully cultivated during debt ceiling negotiations and government funding disputes, McCarthy suffers from the baggage of Republican inconsistency. The party’s lawmakers have tended to resist spending, deficits, and debt more forcefully under Democratic presidents.
Republicans are also presently divided over what spending to cut and increasingly ruling out vast swathes of the federal budget.
Democrats use this history to defend their own fiscal discipline.
“Let’s look at what President Biden has done to reduce the deficit. The president has cut the deficit a record $1.7 trillion, the largest decline in American history,” Dalton told reporters. “His Inflation Reduction Act reduces it by hundreds of billions more, whereas the deficit increased every single year under Donald Trump. His four years in office are responsible for 25% of our total national debt from the last 230 years, and the first bill that House Republicans passed earlier this year adds $114 billion extra to the deficit by helping wealthy Americans cheat on their taxes.”
But the White House has also remained in stubborn denial about the unfunded liabilities of the federal entitlement programs they vow to protect. Asked about the purpose of debt ceiling talks, Biden’s press secretary stuck to her anti-Republican talking points.
“That has been consistent with what House Republicans have been saying,” Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “They want to, you know, hold hostage the debt so that — they want to default on it so that they can cut Social Security so that they can cut Medicare.”
Biden also proposed multiple spending bills with price tags in the ballpark of $1 trillion during his first two years in office, including a partisan reconciliation bill advertised as COVID-19 relief after the passage of multiple previous stimulus measures while businesses were still closed. The subsequent 41-year high inflation ushered in McCarthy’s majority in the first place.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The White House offensive nevertheless plows well-worn paths that led to the reelection of the last two Democratic presidents.
As he goes to deal with Biden, whose economic approvals are low, McCarthy must know what he is getting into.
