WASHINGTON — A testy President Obama yesterday abruptly walked out of debt-limit talks at the White House, with no deal in sight as the Aug. 2 deadline to avoid a credit default rapidly approaches.
Obama shoved back from the conference table and said, “We’ll see you tomorrow,” ending heated budget talks with congressional leaders, said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).
The talks are scheduled to resume today.
The fourth consecutive day of negotiations had been complicated by new obstacles as battles broke out within Republican and Democratic ranks.
GOP lawmakers balked at a proposal by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to use a complicated legislative maneuver that would let Obama make spending cuts and raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit without congressional approval.
The almost-immediate opposition to that plan — intended by McConnell as a backup to avoid a financial calamity — came from conservatives and Tea Party members, and could be enough of a wrinkle to doom the option in the House.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), a GOP White House hopeful and Tea Party favorite, said she was a “no” on the plan.
“People across America are saying the spending is what has to be addressed. It’s too much. It’s got to be limited,” said Bachmann.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) also dismissed the plan. “Republicans weren’t elected last November to make it easier to spend and borrow and add to our debt,” he said on CBS’s “Early Show.”
McConnell offered the plan as a way out of talks that have broken down over Obama’s insistence on including tax increases on wealthy Americans and the private-jet industry.
Congressional leaders haven’t ruled out the plan as a backup if an agreement isn’t reached before the deadline when the United States runs out of borrowed money and faces a credit default that could rock the global economy.
McConnell said the proposal acknowledges “the need to, under any circumstance, maintain the full faith and credit of the United States.”
Democrats aren’t united behind a plan, either.
Rank-and-file Dems remained vehemently opposed to Obama’s proposal for a deal that would include cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits.
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Bronx) described the mood of his colleagues as “very angry.”
Meanwhile, the bond-rating agency Moody’s warned that the US government’s triple-A credit rating was under review for a possible downgrade due to the stalled debt talks.