McCarthy rules out tax hikes in debt ceiling negotiations
Cami Mondeaux Juliegrace Brufke
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is ruling out any tax hikes as he negotiates with President Joe Biden over the debt ceiling.
In a closed-door meeting with the House GOP conference, McCarthy said he told Biden he will not support raising taxes as part of an agreement to increase the borrowing limit and reiterated the need for spending cuts as part of any deal, a Republican lawmaker told the Washington Examiner.
The stipulations come before Biden is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address, during which he is expected to raise the debt ceiling crisis and call for tax increases on the wealthy.
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Biden and McCarthy met last week to discuss a summer deadline to raise the debt ceiling in what has become an early showdown between the president and the newly elected speaker.
The United States hit its debt limit on Jan. 19, raising fears of a default. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said her agency would take “extraordinary measures” to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its obligations, but the Treasury will only have a few months before those measures are exhausted.
McCarthy has previously said the country is at a “critical point” in terms of the national debt and insists that Washington move toward a balanced budget. Democrats have refused to cut domestic programs, and the White House has repeatedly said it would not negotiate on the issue.
“The negotiation over the debt ceiling, over default, is an absolute nonstarter for this president,” Jared Bernstein, a member of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, told Fox News on Sunday. “We have our budget; we want to see what Republicans have.”
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The House speaker has vowed Republicans “won’t touch Medicare or Social Security” as part of their negotiations but expressed an openness to make cuts to defense spending.
The White House is expected to release its budget proposal on March 9; House Republicans are pushing to produce their budget sometime in April, setting the stage for several weeks of negotiations.