Sixty percent of Americans say Congress should cut wasteful spending while increasing the debt limit, a CNN poll found Tuesday.
Only 24 percent believe should Congress should increase the debt limit even without cutting wasteful spending.
The poll is a blow to Democrats and the Biden administration, which refused to negotiate on spending through debt limit talks for many weeks.
After House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) produced a bill in April to both cut spending and raise the debt ceiling, the Biden administration remained obstinate about cutting wasteful spending.
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The administration only relented last week and began to negotiate both measures simultaneously.
“Did the president wait too long to engage with the Republicans on the negotiations?” CBS News’s Weijia Jiang asked White House press secretary Jean-Pierre on Tuesday.
“The president’s been trying to engage with Republicans for months now,” she responded.
But on May 9, Biden acknowledged it took over 97 days for him to invite House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for a second meeting to negotiate the Republican bill to cut the budget, raise the debt ceiling, and prevent default.
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“The president’s goal is to reach a bipartisan agreement that protects the economic progress we’ve made,” a White House official told Punchbowl News on Wednesday. “He is focused on doing what will bring us closer to that goal and protect hardworking Americans’ paychecks and retirement accounts, not scoring political points.”
The CNN poll surveyed 1,227 adults from May 17-20 with a 3.7 point margin of error.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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