Whiplash Day of Debt Limit Talks Ends Without a Breakthrough
Bipartisan talks between top White House and Republican congressional officials over a deal to raise the debt limit ended without a breakthrough on Friday, capping a day of whiplash as negotiators seeking to avoid the first default in the nation’s history repeatedly started and ended discussions amid growing G.O.P. frustration.
Negotiations came to a halt on Friday morning after Republicans vented anger about discussions on spending caps, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy declared a “pause” to the talks. Just hours later, he announced Republicans’ return to the negotiating table, but the discussions ended after an hour on Friday night, and it was unclear when negotiators planned to meet again.
The series of abrupt turns reflected the unwieldy state of negotiations over a bipartisan deal to avert a debt default that could occur as soon as June 1, coupled with a mounting sense of urgency to find a resolution as Congress runs out of time to avoid the economic calamity that could follow.
By the end of the night, Mr. McCarthy’s top advisers were casting doubt on whether they could achieve a deal by the end of the weekend, a timeline the speaker had said on Thursday he saw “a path” to achieve.
Bipartisan talks between top White House and Republican congressional officials over a deal to raise the debt limit ended without a breakthrough on Friday, capping a day of whiplash as negotiators seeking to avoid the first default in the nation’s history repeatedly started and ended discussions amid growing G.O.P. frustration.
Negotiations came to a halt on Friday morning after Republicans vented anger about discussions on spending caps, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy declared a “pause” to the talks. Just hours later, he announced Republicans’ return to the negotiating table, but the discussions ended after an hour on Friday night, and it was unclear when negotiators planned to meet again.
The series of abrupt turns reflected the unwieldy state of negotiations over a bipartisan deal to avert a debt default that could occur as soon as June 1, coupled with a mounting sense of urgency to find a resolution as Congress runs out of time to avoid the economic calamity that could follow.
By the end of the night, Mr. McCarthy’s top advisers were casting doubt on whether they could achieve a deal by the end of the weekend, a timeline the speaker had said on Thursday he saw “a path” to achieve.
“It’s very frustrating if they want to come into the room and think we’re going to spend more money next year than we did this year,” Mr. McCarthy, a California Republican, said on Fox Business on Friday evening, as he announced that his deputies would return to the negotiating table. “That’s not right, and that’s not going to happen.”
The bill that House Republicans passed last month would raise the nation’s borrowing limit into next year in exchange for freezing spending at last year’s levels for a decade — which would lead to cuts of an average of 18 percent.
“We’ve got to get movement by the White House, and we don’t have any movement,” Mr. McCarthy said earlier on Friday, as he announced the initial pause in negotiations. He added: “We can’t be spending more money; we have to spend less than we spent the year before.”
Mr. Biden was checking in regularly with negotiators from Hiroshima, Japan, where he was attending the annual meeting of the Group of 7 major industrial powers, but aides traveling with him sounded less optimistic about a deal in the coming days than they had a day earlier.