WASHINGTON — Better call Joe.
A top Senate Republican called for President Obama to get long-absent Vice President Joe Biden “out of the witness-protection program” to jump-start stalled talks to end the government shutdown and stop a federal credit default.
“I hope the president will become engaged,” Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“Maybe we need to get Joe Biden out of the witness-protection program,” he quipped.
Biden has been the chief White House negotiator in previous high-stakes budget talks, including the deal that averted the 2011 “fiscal cliff.”
McCain said Biden’s mysterious absence this time underscored the uncompromising position of the White House, which has refused to negotiate with House Republicans.
The standoff has led to a two-week government shutdown and a looming threat of a credit default if Congress doesn’t raise the $16.7 trillion debt limit by a Thursday deadline.
“It does all this while maintaining our commitments to reduce spending, cutting an ObamaCare tax and improving anti-fraud provisions in the law. It’s time for Democrat leaders to take ‘yes’ for an answer,” said McConnell.
Obama has stopped talking to House Republicans. But he spoke on the phone with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Obama and Pelosi agreed that Congress should pass “clean” bills with no strings attached to open the government and raise the debt limit, said the White House.
“The president and the leader also discussed their willingness, once the debt limit is raised and the government reopened, to negotiate on a longer term budget solution that will grow our economy and create jobs,” said the White House.
Meanwhile, negotiations bogged down again as Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate struggled in a last-ditch effort to end the crisis.
Republicans balked at a new demand by from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to end automatic spending cuts known as “sequestration.”
“If you break the spending caps, you’re not get any Republicans in the Senate,” Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Reid said that Republicans were being “irresponsible” in refusing to raise the debt limit so that the government can pay its bills.
“No one denies that this nation has work to do to reduce its debt. But Republicans who say this country should default on its debt today are the same Republicans who ran up that debt a few short years ago,” he said on the Senate floor.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the spending caps a “sticking point. He insisted a deal could be in place before Thursday.
“There’s a will. We now have to find a way,” he said on the CBS show. “We know the House won’t find that way, so all of it rests on our shoulders.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged Senate Democrats to take a second look at a bipartisan plan they rejected Saturday that would reopen the government, prevent a default and provide the opportunity for more budget talks later.