FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jeff Hauser, [email protected]
In response to reports that federal agency budget cuts and permitting changes are on the table in ongoing debt ceiling negotiations, Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser said:
“GOP leaders have sent a wildly exploitative ransom note to the public. The administration should not accept its terms. Biden, Yellen, and Garland have many executive branch pathways to avoid doing so, including by refusing to defend the debt ceiling against the recent lawsuit from government employees arguing that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to not pay its debts. The Biden Administration must not cave in to extremists and overwrite the best of the administration’s legacy merely in order to sustain the legal incoherence that is elites’ understanding of the debt ceiling.
“The White House should be clear about the specific and steep costs to the American people of cutting government services and expediting fossil fuel extraction, while limiting democratic community dissent. After all, it is the White House which will face the brunt of the blame for resulting economic woes and inadequate government responses to our myriad public crises. And it is the American people who will suffer from this devil’s bargain the most.
“This is President Biden’s moment to prove that protecting America’s wellbeing is more important to him than his self-image as a Senate wheel-and-dealer. This is not the Republican Party of Biden’s early days in politics. These are not good faith negotiations. Heading into the 2024 election, with democracy itself yet again on the ballot, it would be devastatingly foolish to show the world that the President of the United States can be bullied.”
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PHOTO CREDIT: “Joe Biden Portrait 2021” is in the public domain.
