WARNING, CLIFF AHEAD — It's debt-limit-meeting-eve in Washington, where Republicans and Democrats remain entrenched in their positions on raising the nation's borrowing limit to avoid an unprecedented default. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that there are “no good options” for the U.S. to avoid an economic “calamity” if lawmakers on Capitol Hill can't strike a deal with the White House in the next few weeks to raise the nation’s debt limit. She voiced her warning on on ABC’s "This Week." President Joe Biden’s meeting tomorrow with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will be the first meaty discussions between McCarthy and Biden in months. And anyone hoping that Biden and McConnell, who have cut multiple deals together, could be the key to getting out of this will be sorely disappointed. As Burgess and Olivia report this morning, McConnell told Biden in a call last week that he won’t be coming to the rescue: “in the end, the deal will be made between McCarthy and Biden,” he said in an interview. After two years of being on the opposite sides of, well, nearly everything, McConnell and McCarthy are on the same page. In array, some might say. House Republicans passed a bill that would raise the debt limit, but also includes deep cuts to federal spending which couldn't win enough votes in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Biden has repeatedly said he'll only talk spending cuts with the debt limit off the table. Yellen reiterated the same on Sunday, saying "It's appropriate to have conversations about budget, about spending priorities . . . but we do need to raise the debt ceiling to avoid economic calamity." Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) led a letter signed by 43 GOP Senators, vowing that they “will not be voting for cloture on any bill that raises the debt ceiling without substantive spending and budget reforms.” Jeffries, for his part, said he isn’t interested in a short term punt or 30-day extension on the debt ceiling. But he also didn’t draw a hard line ruling it out (though there is little support for it in the Senate), saying “we have to avoid default, period, full stop.” “I don’t think the responsible thing to do is kick the can down the road,” Jeffries told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” When pressed on if Congressional Democrats would follow Biden’s lead if he strikes a deal with McCarthy, Jeffries said he is in “lockstep right now” with the president, but that “ultimately, everyone evaluates on the merits of any particular piece of legislation that is presented to us.” And as questions about invoking the 14th amendment swirl, Yellen warned against getting to “the point where we need to consider whether the president can go on issuing debt,” saying it would trigger “a constitutional crisis.” During the 2011 debt limit, crisis lawyers at the Justice Department concluded that they didn’t think the president truly had the unilateral authority to issue new debt. And yet, it’s still buzzing around Washington. Yellen noted on Sunday that beating the deadline won’t save the U.S. from all the potential pain. She said that even if a default is ultimately averted, the perception of the threat and flirtation with the deadline means the U.S. is "likely to see financial market consequences." RELATED READS: We Hit the Debt Limit. What Happens Now?, from Jeanna Smialek and Ashley Wu at The New York Times; Why the 14th Amendment Is Being Cited in the Debt Ceiling Debate, from Linda Qiu at The New York Times
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