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Biden Approval Ratings in Decline

Americans are voicing their disapproval of President Joe Biden, nearly nine months after he took office. 

In a string of national polls in the last week, an aggregate of 49.2% of voters surveyed disapproved of Biden’s handling of the presidency, while 44.5% approved, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling site. Five of the recent polls registered disapproval of the country’s 46th president at the RealClearPolitics site, with three favorable. 

Analysts say the drop in Biden’s standing has been particularly precipitous among independent voters who helped him win the White House last year over then-President Donald Trump. 

In July, at the six-month mark of his presidency, Biden enjoyed a nine-percentage point favorability edge, but by the end of August, polls showed U.S. voters were evenly divided in their views about him.

His standing has dropped more since then, with political analysts offering several explanations. 

It was a time coinciding with the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of warfare, the analysts say. They also cite political rancor in Washington between Republicans and Democrats about increasing the government’s debt ceiling and between progressive and moderate Democratic lawmakers about the size and scope of a plan Biden has proposed for the biggest expansion of the country’s social safety net in more thaen five decades. 

The number of new coronavirus cases in the country also rose during recent months before receding more recently, even as nearly 70 million Americans remain unvaccinated. Biden has mandated vaccinations or frequent COVID-19 testing for workers at companies with 100 or more employees, but the mandates are controversial in some parts of the country and at some businesses and have yet to take effect. 

Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed late last week to an emergency $480 billion increase in the government’s borrowing authority through early December, at which time the issue will have to be revisited again. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers, at Biden’s behest, have been trying to pare down his $3.5 trillion social safety net spending proposal and pass it along with bipartisan infrastructure legislation by the end of October. 

Passage of the legislation and a weakening of the coronavirus threat could help Biden’s standing, but the FiveThirtyEight site noted that Biden has a lower approval rating at this point in his presidency than all but two presidents since 1945, although one of them was Trump.

Asked about Biden’s declining poll numbers, White House press secretary Jen Psaki recently told reporters, “This is a really tough time in our country. We’re still battling COVID, and a lot of people thought we’d be through it, including us.” 

“There’s no question it’s affecting a lot of issues,” she said, such as the supply chain of consumer goods coming from foreign manufacturers that are stalled at undermanned U.S. ports. She also said people are worried about their safety and well-being at work. 

Psaki added, “Our focus is getting the pandemic under control, returning to life, a version of normal.” 

 
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Infrastructure Successes Have Transformed America, Can Biden’s Plan do the Same?

Congress appears poised to pass a bipartisan, $1 trillion plan that would be the largest federal investment in infrastructure in more than a decade. History shows that investing in infrastructure can transform the United States, changing how Americans move, bolstering economic prosperity, and significantly improving the health and quality of life for many. 

“When the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, we changed the way we moved forever, opening up the entire country and from the way humans had moved previously for thousands of years by animal to machine,” Greg DiLoreto, past president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), told VOA via email. “[And] I think we all would agree that construction of the interstate highway system changed America in ways that greatly contributed to our economic prosperity.” 

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which authorized the building of 65,000 kilometers (41,000 miles) of interstate highways — the largest American public works program in history at the time. Another earlier transformation occurred in 1936, when Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act, extending electricity into rural areas for the first time.

And the wave of projects that created modern sewage and water systems in urban areas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries left a lasting mark, providing reliable, clean water in cities and extracting pollution from sewage.

“American cities in the late 19th, early 20th century were incredibly unhealthy places,” says Richard White, professor emeritus of American history at Stanford University in California. “High child death rates, repeated epidemics, and much of that was waterborne disease that came from both ineffective sewage and impure water. And infrastructure projects changed that dramatically. Probably it’s been the most effective public health effort ever in the history of the United States.”

Dark consequences 

DiLoreto also names the construction of dams across the western United States, which increased America’s ability to farm and feed the world, as infrastructure successes. But he points out that the projects created problems for migrating fish. In fact, many of the so-called successful infrastructure projects, like interstate highways, had dark consequences. 

“They increased racial stratification in the cities. They were built in such a way that they went through poorer neighborhoods, very often minority neighborhoods, walling them off from the city as a whole,” White says. “They set them apart and set in motion a set of social changes which we suffer from still. So, they hurt poorer areas, minority areas, even if they helped middle-class areas.” 

White, who wrote the book “Railroaded,” about the building of the transcontinental railroads, contends the federal government funded too many railroads into areas without the traffic to sustain them. 

“The railroads took government money and then went bankrupt,” White says. “They were very often utterly corrupt. The money was taken off into the private pockets behind some of the great fortunes in American history, and they never really delivered the economic and social benefits that they promised.” 

And Native Americans ended up paying the price, White adds. 

“Many of these railroads ended up costing Indian peoples huge amounts of land for no particular benefit,” he says. “It’s not like white settlement was particularly successful in the land the Indians lost. So, even though it was intended to raise the standard of living for everybody in the West, it didn’t necessarily do so, and the great cost was paid very often by Indian people.” 

Bold enough?

The stripped-down bipartisan version of President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan (AJP) pours money into transportation, utilities — including high-speed internet for rural communities — and pollution cleanup. What the bill does not appear to contain is a single transformative project. 

“From the information I have, funds will be used to help us repair, replace and make our infrastructure more robust to withstand climate change and seismic risks,” DiLoreto says. “One might consider that transformative in the sense that our quality of life and economic prosperity depend on a functioning infrastructure.” 

White views the bill as backward-looking rather than forward-thinking at a time when the United States needs to transform itself to adjust to a changing world, doing things differently in the future than it has in the past. 

“We have our first great infrastructure bill, which is mostly intended to protect things we built in the past, which, I think, in the long run, that’s going to be seen as a failing,” White says. “And again, I’m not saying that you should allow bridges to fall into rivers, or that the roads don’t need repair. But it’s not transformative.” 

There is one potentially sweeping project that could help revolutionize life in the United States. 

“Broadband has had a tremendous impact on our lives,” DiLoreto says. “Without a broadband system, our ability to economically survive COVID would have been difficult.” 

The current bipartisan plan provides $65 billion for broadband infrastructure. 

“If broadband in this bill works as they intend it … and they bring it into poor areas which now lack broadband, that would be a good thing, that could be transformative,” White says. “That could have the same kind of consequences that rural electrification had in terms of education and lightening people’s workload and allowing them to do the kinds of work they otherwise couldn’t do. … But if they simply make it more effective for those who have it already, it’s not going to be transformative.”
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Biden Won’t Block Release of Trump January 6 Documents

President Joe Biden will not block the release of a tranche of documents sought by a House committee for its investigation into the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, setting up a showdown with former President Donald Trump, who has pledged to try to keep records from his time in the White House from being turned over to investigators.

In a letter to the Archivist of the United States, White House counsel Dana Remus writes that Biden has determined that invoking executive privilege “is not in the best interests of the United States.” This came days after Trump lawyers sought to block the testimony of former Trump officials to the House committee, citing executive privilege.

On Friday, a lawyer for Steve Bannon said the former White House aide wouldn’t comply with the House committee’s investigation because of Trump’s claim.

In August, the House committee investigating the insurrection asked for a trove of records, including communication within the White House under Trump and information about planning and funding for rallies held in Washington. Among those events was a rally near the White House featuring remarks by Trump, who egged on a crowd of thousands before loyalists stormed the Capitol.

Importance of documents

In the letter, Remus writes that the documents reviewed “shed light on events within the White House on and about January 6 and bear on the Select Committee’s need to understand the facts underlying the most serious attack on the operations of the Federal Government since the Civil War.”

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter Friday, which was first reported by NBC News.

Copies of the documents responsive to the request were turned over to the Biden White House and Trump’s lawyers for review for potential executive privilege concerns in accordance with federal law and the executive order governing presidential records.

The committee’s 10-page request to the Archives seeks “all documents and communications within the White House on January 6, 2021” related to Trump’s close advisers and family members, the rally at the nearby Ellipse and Trump’s Twitter feed. It asks for his specific movements on that day and communications, if any, from the White House Situation Room. Also sought are all documents related to claims of election fraud, as well as Supreme Court decisions on the topic.

Biden’s decision affects only the initial batch of documents reviewed by the White House. Press secretary Jen Psaki said subsequent determinations would be made on a case-by-case basis.

The current president has the final say unless a court orders the Archives to take a different action. Trump has not formally sought to invoke executive privilege over the documents, though that action is expected soon.

Trump is expected to take legal action to block the release of the documents, which, if a block was granted, would mark a dramatic expansion of the unwritten executive power. Trump will have an uphill battle, as courts have traditionally left questions of executive privilege up to the current White House occupant — though the former president’s challenges could delay the committee’s investigation.

Two witnesses ‘engaging’

Two other witnesses subpoenaed by the panel, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Pentagon aide Kash Patel, are “engaging” with the committee, according to its Democratic chairman, Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, and Republican vice chairwoman, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Thompson and Cheney issued a statement Friday after a deadline for document production had passed.

“Though the Select Committee welcomes good faith engagement with witnesses seeking to cooperate with our investigation, we will not allow any witness to defy a lawful subpoena or attempt to run out the clock, and we will swiftly consider advancing a criminal contempt of Congress referral,” the two lawmakers said.

A spokesman for the panel declined to comment on the status of a fourth witness, former Trump communications aide Dan Scavino.

Bannon’s move sets the stage for a likely clash with House Democrats who are investigating the roles of Trump and his allies in the run-up to the riot, when a large mob of Trump supporters broke into the Capitol as Congress was certifying the results of the presidential election won by Biden, a Democrat. The committee is rapidly issuing subpoenas to individuals who are either connected to Trump or who helped plan the massive rally on the morning of January 6 at which he told his supporters to “fight like hell.”

Bannon’s refusal to comply, and Trump’s vow to litigate the testimony, will mean certain delays in the panel’s probe. But members of the committee, several of whom worked as prosecutors on Trump’s two impeachments, were prepared for the possibility and have repeatedly threatened charging witnesses with contempt. Trump often successfully fought witness testimony during his presidency but may find his legal standing shakier now that he is out of office.

A committee effort to charge witnesses with contempt would likely involve a vote of the full House and a referral to the Justice Department. It would then be up to Justice how to proceed with charges.

‘Unable to respond’

Bannon’s lawyer, Robert Costello, said in letter to the panel dated Thursday that until the issues over privilege are resolved, “we are unable to respond to your requests for documents and testimony.”

Costello wrote that Bannon, a former aide to Trump who had contact with him the week of the Capitol attack, is prepared to “comply with the directions of the courts” when and if they rule on the issue.

The letter includes excerpts from a separate letter sent to Bannon by Justin Clark, a lawyer for Trump. Clark says documents and testimony provided to the January 6 panel could include information that is “potentially protected from disclosure by executive and other privileges, including among others the presidential communications, deliberative process and attorney client privileges.”

Clark wrote to Bannon that “President Trump is prepared to defend these fundamental privileges in court.”

Spokespeople for Trump have not returned messages seeking comment. Trump said in a statement last month that he would “fight the Subpoenas on Executive Privilege and other grounds, for the good of our Country.”

As a former president, Trump cannot directly assert privilege to keep witnesses quiet or documents out of the hands of Congress. As the current president, Biden will have some say in the matter.
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US Debt Ceiling: What’s Behind the Latest Crisis in Washington?

Senators in Washington passed a deal Thursday to temporarily raise the country’s debt limit, giving the U.S. Treasury Department the ability to borrow enough money for the country to keep paying its bills through the beginning of December.

The lack of agreement on the debt ceiling had been making both the Washington establishment and the financial markets nervous, as the country moved toward a crisis on Oct. 18, the day that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had warned the country might begin to struggle to pay its bills.

Debt ceiling crises have become a fairly regular feature of politics in Washington, but one that must seem strange — and even irrational — to people outside the U.S. Why does a rich and powerful country like the United States so frequently find itself on the brink of a fiscal disaster?

What follows is a brief explainer on the debt ceiling.

What, exactly, is the debt ceiling?

The United States government regularly spends more money than it takes in from taxes, fees, and other sources of revenue. That means that the country must regularly borrow money to make up the difference. The current accumulated federal debt stands at $28.4 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.

The responsibility for borrowing money falls on the Treasury, which does it by issuing different forms of debt instruments. These range from Treasury bills, that can mature in as little as a few days, to bonds that mature over 30 years.

However, the government places a cap on the total amount of debt that the Treasury can issue. The U.S. is unique among major economies in putting this restriction on the Treasury.

The existence of a debt ceiling means that Congress can pass spending laws that effectively require the Treasury to borrow money but can simultaneously withhold the authority to issue that debt by refusing to raise the statutory cap on borrowing.

Why does the U.S. have a debt ceiling in the first place?

Ironically, the debt ceiling was originally created as a mechanism that made it easier, not harder, for the Treasury to borrow money.

For the first 140 years of U.S. history, the Treasury was obliged to seek the permission of Congress every time it wanted to issue new debt. However, in 1917, when the U.S. government needed to borrow money to fund its participation in the first World War, this process became cumbersome.

Rather than demand that the Treasury seek permission for every war bond issuance, Congress gave the department blanket permission to borrow money up to a certain amount. Lawmakers would only need to get involved when and if that limit needed to be breached. After several changes to the rules over the next 20 years, a general limit was placed on all federal debt in 1939.

Raising the debt limit was treated as a routine matter for decades, but beginning in the first years of the 21st century, the issue became more politicized. Since then, the party opposed to the sitting president has often used it as convenient leverage for achieving policy concessions from the incumbent administration.

Why is raising the debt ceiling such a big deal?

The reason why potential U.S. debt defaults get so much attention is because of the disastrous effects such an interruption in payments would have, both domestically and around the world.

Domestically, default would impair the government’s ability to deliver basic services and to make payments to individual citizens and to the many contractors that do business with government entities.

In financial markets, U.S. Treasury securities are considered the closest thing there is to a risk-free asset. Any number of financial instruments and transactions are indexed to the interest rate the federal government pays on its borrowings.

If the ability of the U.S. to continue servicing its debts were compromised, it could cause a chain reaction that would drive up borrowing costs for everyone. The stock market would likely dive, impacting the retirement savings of millions of Americans. Additionally, the value of the dollar would erode, reducing the purchasing power not just of Americans, but of many people outside the U.S. who hold dollars as a reliable store of value.

Where is the disagreement?

Leaders of both political parties in the U.S. have said from the beginning of the current debt ceiling crisis that the borrowing limit must be raised, and that there can be no possibility of allowing a debt default.

However, Republicans in Congress have said that they will not provide any votes to raise the limit — not even for a preliminary vote that would allow Democrats to pass a debt ceiling increase all by themselves. They are insisting that the Democrats use an arcane legislative procedure known as “budget reconciliation” that can be brought to a vote with no Republican support.

Democrats are objecting to Republican demands, arguing that the need to raise the debt limit stems from spending commitments made in the past by both political parties, and that both parties should therefore share the responsibility of raising the limit.

Part of Republicans’ reason for demanding that Democrats use the reconciliation process is that it will require Democrats to set a fixed limit on the debt, thereby giving Republican politicians a massive number that they can use to hammer Democrats during the 2022 election season. Democrats would prefer to simply “suspend” enforcement of the debt ceiling, which would allow the amount of the country’s borrowing to increase with no fixed limit.

What happens next?

The deal that lawmakers announced Thursday would raise the debt limit by $480 billion, which is expected to cover the Treasury’s needs through about Dec. 3. It is unclear, however, when the country would again come close to defaulting. The Treasury has a number of tools it can deploy to postpone default, so the next deadline may be later than Dec. 3.

The deal does nothing to bridge the divide between the two parties on the broader issue, though, and makes it likely that in roughly six weeks, the country will again be counting the days until a catastrophic default.

Only this time, the stakes will be even higher. Dec. 3 is the same day that the federal government will be forced into a partial shutdown unless Congress can agree on a budget deal that will authorize the government to continue spending money. 
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Senate Democrats Give New Details on Trump’s Bid to Overturn Election

A review by U.S. Senate Democrats of Donald Trump’s attempt to use the Justice Department to overturn his 2020 election defeat provided new details on Thursday about an official’s bid to push out the acting attorney general to advance Trump’s false claims.

The report by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats details how Jeffrey Bossert Clark, then a senior Justice Department official, met with Trump more than once in late 2020. The then-president was growing angry that acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen would not launch a public investigation into Trump’s false claim that his defeat to now-President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud.

Rosen assumed his position in the final weeks of Trump’s presidency after William Barr resigned effective Dec. 23, 2020, rather than use the department to pursue Trump’s false claims, which were rejected by multiple courts, state election officials and his own administration.

“Today’s report shows the American people just how close we came to a constitutional crisis,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin said in a statement.

Rosen told the committee that Trump opened one meeting with him by saying, “One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren’t going to do anything to overturn the election.”

Trump also asked Clark if he would be willing to take over as acting attorney general, the report said, adding that Clark relayed this message to Rosen.

“Rosen recalled Clark indicating that he hadn’t yet decided whether he would accept Trump’s offer, wanted to conduct some ‘due diligence’ on certain election fraud claims, and might turn down the offer if he determined that Rosen and (Rosen’s deputy, Richard Donoghue) were correct that there was no corruption,” the report said.

The report also found that Clark sought to attend a meeting with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to ask about a baseless conspiracy theory that a Dominion voting machine “accessed the Internet through a smart thermostat.”

Clark pushed for a letter to Georgia, urging a special legislative session to contest the election results, the report said. The request was refused.

Clark’s efforts ultimately failed, after all of the department’s remaining senior leadership threatened to resign in protest if Clark were installed.

Durbin said the committee has asked Clark to testify.

Thursday’s report also contains new details about how former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows tried convince Rosen to launch “at least four categories of false election claims” in places such as Fulton County, Georgia and New Mexico.

Republicans on the committee issued their own report, which drew different conclusions.

“The available evidence shows that President Trump did what we’d expect a president to do on an issue of this importance: He listened to his senior advisers and followed their advice and recommendations,” Ranking Member Charles Grassley said.
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US Lawmakers Reach Deal to Extend Country’s Borrowing Authority

U.S. Senate leaders reached an agreement Thursday to extend the government’s borrowing authority through early December to avert what could have been the country’s first-ever default on its debts in less than two weeks.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the pact on the Senate floor after negotiations with Republican leader Mitch McConnell. He proposed to Democrats on Wednesday an extension of the country’s current long-term $28.4 trillion debt total by an unspecified amount to cover government spending into December, by which time the issue would again have to be addressed.

Schumer said he hoped to win congressional approval for the debt ceiling extension later Thursday, but he gave no details on the debt level lawmakers had agreed to or any other conditions of the agreement. News outlets reported that the new borrowing authority would extend to December 3 and permit the government to borrow another $480 billion.

Congressional rancor over increasing the debt limit intensified in recent days, with the time counting down to October 18, the date Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the government would run out of enough money to pay all its bills because it chronically spends more than it collects in taxes.

Monthly pension payments to older Americans, paychecks to government workers and payments to government contractors could have been delayed. But the biggest fear was that a default would roil the U.S. economy, the world’s largest, and send shockwaves throughout the global economy. 

Republicans said they would not cast their votes to help Democrats raise the debt ceiling, in part to express their opposition to calls by President Joe Biden for more than $2 trillion in new spending to greatly expand the government’s social safety net programs. Democrats say the new spending would be fully paid for with higher taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, which Republicans also oppose.

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, welcomed McConnell’s move Wednesday to alleviate the debt ceiling stalemate. 

The Republicans “have finally done the right thing and at least we now have another couple months in order to get a permanent solution,” Sanders said.

McConnell had said Democrats, who control the Senate, should use the reconciliation process to address the debt limit.  

Reconciliation is a parliamentary maneuver that allows certain budget-related legislation to pass with a simple majority, not 60 votes, in the Senate. Under reconciliation, the Democrats would not need any Republican votes.

“This will moot Democrats’ excuses about the time crunch they created and give the unified Democratic government more than enough time to pass standalone debt limit legislation through reconciliation,” McConnell said. “Alternatively, if Democrats abandon their efforts to ram through another historically reckless taxing and spending spree that will hurt families and help China, a more traditional bipartisan governing conversation could be possible.”  

Schumer has called reconciliation a “drawn-out, convoluted and risky process.”  

Republicans have been saying since July they would not vote to raise the debt limit.  

Biden met Wednesday with some of America’s top business leaders and banking executives to make the case that Congress must increase the government’s borrowing authority.  

A default would risk millions of jobs and throw the United States into recession, “causing lasting harm to America’s economic strength by threatening the dollar’s status as the currency the world relies on and downgrading the U.S.’s credit rating,” the White House said.  

Biden said raising the debt limit “is paying our old debts” and is not linked to his administration’s proposals for spending on infrastructure and social programs.

Democrats are hoping to suspend the debt limit into December 2022, a month after congressional elections when the current Democratic edge in both the Senate and House is at stake.

The U.S. is virtually alone among world governments in imposing a government borrowing limit, which it has increased numerous times over recent decades, either to a specific amount or suspended it for a year or two.
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What Is a Filibuster?

What do U.S. senators do when they want to delay a vote? They fillibuster. VOA explains how this delay tactic works.
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US Senate Appears Near Temporary Truce in Debt-Ceiling Standoff

The U.S. Senate appeared near to a temporary deal to avert a federal debt default in the next two weeks, after Democrats said Wednesday that they might accept a Republican proposal to defuse the partisan standoff that threatens the broader economy.

Democrats called off an early-afternoon vote after the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, floated a plan that would buy more time to resolve the issue. McConnell proposed that his party would allow an extension of the federal debt ceiling into December.

Without congressional action to raise the $28.4 trillion debt limit, the Treasury Department has forecast that it will run out of ways to meet all its obligations by October 18. The Bipartisan Policy Center said Wednesday that unemployment insurance payments, salaries for millions of federal employees and medical insurance payments could be delayed without a debt-ceiling hike.

No official acceptance yet 

Several Democrats said they would accept the Republican offer. “We intend to take this temporary victory,” Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin said on CNN.

But without a statement from Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, it was not clear whether that was the party’s official stance, and the White House did not commit to the idea. The White House has yet to receive a formal offer, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Still, Democrats would have to address the issue again in December, just as federal funding is due to expire. That could complicate their efforts to pass two massive spending bills that make up much of Biden’s domestic agenda.

Republicans said Democrats could use the intervening weeks to pass a longer debt-ceiling extension through a complex process called reconciliation, which Democrats have dismissed as too cumbersome and risky. McConnell said Republicans would make concessions to help speed the process up.

Republicans had been expected to block the bill that was up for a vote Wednesday, which suspended the debt limit until December 2022, after the midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress for the next two years.

Dangers of default

Analysts say a default could upend the global financial system and cause millions of lost jobs.

Even a close call would likely be damaging. A 2011 debt ceiling dispute that Congress resolved two days before the borrowing limit was due to be reached caused stocks to tumble and prompted a first-ever credit downgrade for U.S. debt.

Moody’s Investors Service said on Tuesday that it expected Washington would ultimately raise the debt limit, however, and U.S. stock indexes rose on Wednesday as investors grew more optimistic that Congress could reach a deal.

A more telling indication of investor relief was evident in the U.S. Treasury market, which would be directly affected by a U.S. default. Rates on one-month Treasury bills — the securities most likely to be impaired by a failure of the government to pay interest or principal on the debt immediately after the deadline — dropped sharply, an indication that investors were again willing to buy them.

Democrats had considered other options to resolve the standoff.

Biden said Tuesday that Democrats might weaken a long-standing rule, known as the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation in the 100-seat Senate. But that notion seemed to fade on Wednesday, as a key centrist Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin, said he would not support it.
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Biden Meets with Corporate Executives as Debt Limit Deadline Looms

U.S. President Joe Biden is meeting Wednesday with some of America’s top business leaders to make the case that Congress must increase the government’s borrowing authority before October 18, when the U.S. expects to run out of money to pay its bills.

The White House said before the meeting that the executives “understand firsthand that a default would be economically devastating” for the United States — which has never defaulted on its financial obligations — and the world economy. 

A default would risk millions of jobs and throw the U.S. into recession, “causing lasting harm to America’s economic strength by threatening the dollar’s status as the currency the world relies on and downgrading the U.S.’s credit rating,” the White House said. 

Among those expected to meet with Biden, some in person and some virtually, are banking chief executives Jane Fraser of Citi, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America. Others at the meeting include Greg Hayes, the CEO of Raytheon Technologies, Adena Friedman, president and chief executive of the Nasdaq stock exchange, and Pat Gelsinger, chief executive of the Intel technology company. 

The White House is locked in a political stalemate with opposition Senate Republicans over how to increase the government’s borrowing authority beyond its current $28.4 trillion level to a specific amount or to suspend any limit until December 2022, a month past next year’s pivotal congressional elections. 

With Republicans and Democrats each holding 50 seats in the 100-member Senate, Republicans so far have refused to abandon their ability to filibuster against the debt limit increase. It would require Democrats to secure 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster and bring the issue to a vote. 

But Biden told reporters at the White House on Tuesday there was “a real possibility” that Democrats could abandon the long-standing filibuster tradition in the Senate for a vote on increasing the debt limit, while maintaining the filibuster for regular legislation. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned Congress that the government will likely reach its borrowing limit by October 18. 

The White House said that at the meeting with business leaders, Biden “will detail the Republican obstruction that has led us to this point.” He accused Republican party of “refusing to do the right thing by fulfilling its bipartisan responsibility to address the debt limit—even after adding $8 trillion” to the total under the administration of former President Donald Trump. 

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says that Democrats should increase the debt ceiling without any Republican support through a legislative procedure called reconciliation, which Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have rejected as cumbersome and time-consuming. 

“They have the time to do it,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “And the sooner they get about it, the better.” 

Schumer accused Republicans of manufacturing a crisis as he announced a Wednesday vote on a bill to raise the debt limit already passed by the House of Representatives. Senate Republicans have already twice blocked Democratic attempts to extend the debt ceiling on their own by reserving their right to filibuster the legislative action. 

“If Republicans want to vote ‘no’ [on Wednesday], if they really want to be the party of default, that’s their choice,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. 

The U.S., virtually alone among world governments, imposes a debt ceiling, and has periodically increased it or suspended it for a year or two. It is tantamount to a credit card limit that consumers might face, a curb on how much they can increase their debt and a requirement to pay off debts already incurred. 

But Republicans object to joining Democrats in increasing it now because they are opposed to Biden’s plans to spend $2 trillion or more to greatly expand the country’s social safety net to provide more government aid for families, students and health care benefits for older Americans. 

Democrats say they would fully pay for the extra spending with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, not add to the country’s long-term debt total. 

Coming too close to the borrowing limit has its perils. A debt ceiling dispute in 2011 that Congress resolved two days before the borrowing limit was reached caused stock prices to fall and the first-ever credit downgrade for U.S. debt.
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