President Joe Biden lambasted Republicans’ emerging trade-off plans to raise the nation’s debt limit only in exchange for spending cuts and other policy concessions on Wednesday, declaring that GOP lawmakers are threatening a historic default on U.S. obligations “unless I agree to all these wacko notions they have.”
His remarks in a union hall speech came as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had for months struggled to unite Republicans around a unified budget proposal, released a sweeping spending-restraint plan to offer to the White House along with lifting the debt limit by $1.5 trillion.