Debt limit: Republicans and Democrats say they will have ‘fail-safe’ if Biden’s talks with McCarthy die

Leaders of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus said Sunday they are working on a “failsafe option” for the US debt limit if talks between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden fail.

“I think it’s irresponsible not to have the conversation, just as it’s irresponsible not to live up to our responsibilities as a country and jeopardize the full confidence and credit of the United States,” said the New Jersey Democratic representative. Josh Gottheimer, told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

Co-chair of the caucus, GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania said, “We cannot allow our country to default under any circumstances.”

House Republicans were at a standoff with the White House and Senate Democrats as the Treasury Department issued an urgent warning that action must be taken to raise the debt ceiling.

Otherwise, the US could default on its payments – and send the global economy into a tailspin.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (right) and Josh Gottheimer (left) are the bipartisan co-chairs of the House Problem Solvers Caucus

The GOP majority in the House of Representatives has made it clear that it will not raise the debt ceiling unless it is offset by future government spending cuts.

And while they hope a solution can be found after McCarthy left a White House meeting on what appeared to be a high note last week, Fitzpatrick and Gottheimer are also poised to step in with a plan if the two parties don’t agree on reasonable cuts some can enter into a debt limitation agreement.

“Our hope, of course, is that the leadership and the White House are able to work something out,” the Democrat said.

His Republican counterpart reiterated, “We will let them do their job. We don’t want to undermine anyone.’

“But what Josh and our group do together is we don’t negotiate publicly. We work everything out,” Fitzpatrick said.

“We have a fail-safe option in the background, ready to go to make sure we get this job done.”

The limit is the total amount of money the federal government is allowed to owe to pay military salaries, welfare payments, and other programs that affect millions of people.

Fitzpatrick claimed that the current regulation, which regularly raises the debt ceiling by certain amounts of money – and is increasingly being discussed – “makes no sense”.

He instead suggested turning it into a debt-to-GDP ratio.

They said they would stand behind House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (pictured) to make a deal with the White House to avert a default

But President Joe Biden has so far maintained that he will not negotiate spending cuts related to the debt ceiling, calling raising the ceiling a “commitment”.

“A number that could be agreed upon has a short term after that,” Fitzpatrick explained.

“And if that cure doesn’t happen, certain discretionary spending guard rails will be raised.”

He explained that the US currently has “a debt ratio of over 100 percent”.

“This has happened twice in our nation’s history, in World War II and now,” Fitzpatrick said.

“And that threatens the valuation of our currency and risks our competitiveness with China and we see how big the threat is. So this is the solution I want to push forward.”

Before his meeting with McCarthy, Biden claimed that raising the debt ceiling could not be a negotiating item because it was a “commitment” by the US government to do so.

But the Republican leader told reporters afterwards that talks would continue.

“The President and I had a good first meeting — I shared my perspective with him, he shared his,” McCarthy said outside the White House.

He said there were “no agreements, no promises, except that we would continue this conversation”.

The White House called their meeting “open and straightforward.”

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk