GOP, Democrats ready blame game for debt ceiling failure

As debt limit talks drag on behind closed doors, lawmakers on both sides are preparing for Washington’s favorite pastime: the partisan blame game if everything falls apart.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has accused President Biden and the Democrats of not taking the negotiations seriously, flaunting that Republicans have already passed a bill that paired a debt limit increase with spending cuts and calling for a deal by the end of the week.

“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.

Democrats 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.   

“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. Joe Neguse (Colo.), head of the House Democrats’ messaging arm. “The only group of people in Washington threatening a default are House Republicans. No one else.”

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.

Republicans are hammering President Biden for refusing steep spending cuts in return for raising the government’s borrowing cap. Democrats counter that GOP leaders are at fault for rejecting a “clean” debt limit hike without conditions. The stubborn impasse has led even the veterans of the budget trench wars to wonder where the resolution lies.

“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. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “It’s a wild ride.”

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More coverage of the debt ceiling from The Hill:

• Five things to know about where negotiations stand
• McCarthy confirms work requirements are ‘red line’
• Yellen warns of catastrophic default: ‘Time is running out’
• GOP senators dismiss Trump’s calls for a default
• LAST WEEK: Takeaways from initial White House debt ceiling meeting

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The clock is ticking with just two weeks until June 1. 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 challenge is we went 97 days where he wouldn’t talk to me. And now, you know, every time I’ve wanted to talk to him, I had to force our ways in,” McCarthy said. “The time is of the essence, though; we can’t sit around and wait.”

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. McCarthy left the talks claiming one victory: The number of negotiators, he said, has been cut down to focus the talks between the White House and House Republicans — a dynamic GOP leaders have sought from the beginning.  

“The structure of how we negotiate has improved,” he said. 

Yet it’s not clear that there’s been any substantial progress, with the sides still far apart on a host of issues, including spending caps, work requirements for social benefits and new rules governing the approval of infrastructure and energy projects. 

“I’m not more optimistic. You’re only 15 days away, and you’re trying to raise the debt ceiling,” McCarthy said, clarifying that the only thing he thinks is better is the structure of negotiations.

McCarthy did draw a new “red line” on Tuesday, telling reporters any debt limit deal must include new work requirements for public assistance programs along the lines of what passed in the GOP’s debt limit bill in April.

That bill beefed up work requirements for able-bodied adults between the ages of 50 and 56 for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — previously known as food stamps. It also proposed changes to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and outlined new work requirements for Medicaid.

Republicans have not been clear if they need changes to all those programs to get to a “yes” or just some of them. But Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), who long has been involved in work requirements discussions, warned that changes to TANF work requirements alone would not be sufficient. 

TANF changes proposed in the GOP bill would save only $6 million over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office estimated, compared to $109 billion for the Medicaid proposals and $11 billion for the SNAP changes.

Other more vague “red lines,” Johnson said, are “no clean debt ceiling increase,” no tax increases, and “significant change [to] the way we spend and borrow money in this country.”

Republicans are also eyeing permitting reform for energy projects, budget caps, and clawbacks of COVID-19 funds as likely areas of compromise, according to Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), who McCarthy tapped to take a leading role in negotiations with the White House going forward.

Democrats were unanimous in their opposition to the Republicans’ debt limit package, and party leaders are now blasting the legislation with warnings that the spending caps it established would necessitate steep cuts in popular federal programs, like the National Institutes of Health and Meals on Wheels. 

“I think it’s crazy that Republicans call this a plan,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “I’m incredibly scared with where we are.”

Democrats will attempt an escape-hatch strategy on Wednesday, when they plan to introduce a procedural resolution known as a discharge petition designed to force a floor vote on a debt limit hike even if McCarthy objects. 

No Republicans are expected to endorse the petition, but Democrats are predicting that might quickly change if Congress gets too close to a default.   

“They’re not going to want to take the wind out of Kevin’s sails,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), “until there’s no other choice.”