WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden plans to go on the offensive against Republicans, essentially saying his policies would add $3 trillion to the national debt.
Shortly before Biden’s speech to union workers in Lanham, Md., on Wednesday, the White House released a statement questioning the sincerity of Republican pledges to cut the deficit.
The White House accuses Republicans of hypocrisy for favoring tax policies that would add to the $31.4 trillion national debt. Still, Biden wants to put those tax cuts on hold as long as the strategy is “fiscally responsible.”
This speech is the last of a political and economic debate which will extend over several months. Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, must reach an agreement this summer to raise the debt ceiling or the government would run out of funds to meet its obligations.
McCarthy says they need to come to an agreement to settle public accounts and on Friday he tweeted: “We will no longer be giving out blank checks for public spending.”
Biden detailed a recent exchange with McCarthy in a speech Tuesday in Washington to county government officials. He told them that the Republican legislator “has made it clear what he wants to do. He said he didn’t want to raise anyone’s taxes at all. What he wants is to cut programs.
The president indicated that Republicans in Congress must present their plan to the nation, as the White House plans to do on March 9.
“I think we can be fiscally responsible without risking the country descending into chaos,” Biden said Tuesday, referring to the debt negotiations.
However, solving the debt problem could hinge on the impending expiration of individual tax cuts that then-President Donald Trump signed into law in 2017. Extending those cuts would theoretically increase the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That body plans to release an updated calculation on Wednesday.