On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” White House National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti stated that “there is no plan B” if Congress won’t pass a clean increase to the debt ceiling and responded to a question on whether President Joe Biden would rather have a default than accepting any spending cuts by stating that is “not the situation” we currently face.
Host Jake Tapper asked, “So, the Biden administration is insisting that President Biden will only sign a clean debt ceiling bill without any spending cuts. I mean, frankly, sir, you don’t have the numbers. The House is controlled by Republicans and now you have 43 Senate Republicans siding with them. That’s enough to filibuster any clean bill in the Senate, so what’s plan B here?”
Ramamurti answered, “Well, there is no plan B. Our plan is for Congress to act to address the debt limit without conditions, just like they’ve done 78 times in the past, just like they did three times under President Trump, even as they were adding $8 trillion to the deficit.”
Later Tapper asked, “Would President Biden rather the U.S. default on its debt obligations than accept a bill that includes any spending cuts?”
Ramamurti responded, “That’s not the situation before us right — as we speak. And I would note that if we pass the bill that the Republicans want, that, too, will do incredible economic harm. Remember Moody’s — a non-partisan economic analysis group — has found that the Republican bill, if it went into law, would cost 800,000 jobs within the next year. It would cause 30 million fewer outpatient visits for veterans. It would cost us 60,000 teachers and it would meaningfully push us closer to a recession. That’s what they said. So, those are the options that the Republicans have put before us, either push us closer to a recession or have an immediate recession because of a default. As you can see, those are not options that we’re willing to entertain.”
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