With 9 days left before June 1, President Biden is attempting to rewrite history, insisting he has “done [his] part” on the debt limit and would be “blameless” if the U.S. defaults on its debt.
Yet the fact is President Biden refused to negotiate with Speaker McCarthy for more than 100 days.
Make no mistake: any default would be the Biden Default.
Let’s review a timeline of what has really happened during the debt limit negotiations this year:
- Speaker McCarthy attempted to begin discussions on a responsible debt limit increase on January 12. Since then, the Speaker has called on President Biden to negotiate dozens of times. They met on February 1.
- For the next 104 days, President Biden ignored Speaker McCarthy’s reasonable requests to negotiate as the debt crisis drew nearer.
- In April, House Republicans passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which avoids default, grows the economy, and limits government spending. This took place weeks before Secretary Yellen announced a debt limit deadline and, to date, is the only action that anyone in Washington has taken to avoid a catastrophic default.
House Republicans’ proactive vote to raise the debt limit was the catalyst behind President Biden dropping his “my way or the highway” approach and finally coming to the table.
The national debt under President Biden surpassed $31 trillion because Democrats increased annual discretionary spending by $400 billion, a 30 percent increase, in four years and voted to add $6 trillion to the debt burden over ten years. That means forcing Americans to borrow more money from China, one of the largest holders of our public debt.
From the beginning, Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans have been very clear that Democrats’ addiction to spending led to soaring inflation, greater dependence on China, and record debt. Now, Washington must spend less.
Because he wasted months ignoring the crisis until it became a full-blown emergency, President Biden now has just 9 days to get serious and strike a responsible agreement to raise the debt limit immediately. Otherwise, he risks bumbling into the first default in American history.
