Despite reports of broken down or suspended talks, President Joe Biden, who stoutly maintained for months his steadfast refusal to discuss the U.S. “debt ceiling” issue with Republicans in Congress, is negotiating with them, and with Democratic leaders, over making some spending cuts in return for a vote to raise the Congressional statutory limit of debt another time. The GOP used its House majority, passing a “budget bill,” to force Biden to negotiate.
But according to a GOP Representative briefed on the negotiations, Garrett Graves of Louisiana, the spending cuts the Republicans are proposing to trade for a debt ceiling increase no longer include military spending—in particular, no cuts to the authorizations of well over $100 billion weapons and aid to Ukraine in NATO’s proxy war against Russia. Despite significant skepticism among the American public about this huge overseas war, and resolutions against it advanced by Republican Senators like Rand Paul and Mike Lee and House Members led by Thomas Massie and Matt Gaetz, the top leaders negotiating with Biden actually want to increase the gigantic American military budget further, beyond its $870 billion level in Fiscal Year 2023—not cut it back to the FY2022 level.
So the Republican move to hold a threat of U.S. sovereign default over the White House’s head, has lost whatever redeeming value a move against NATO’s endless “Ukraine” war could have given it.
Biden met personally in hours of negotiation May 9 and May 10 with the four top officials of Congress—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries—after which a May 11 session was cancelled to allow staff work on proposed cuts. Another White House meeting is to take place May 15 or May 16.
