Joe Biden has warned that if Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections they would “explode the deficit” and “crash the economy” with their plans for more tax cuts and a showdown over the debt limit.
At the White House on Friday, the US president said that Republican leadership in Congress “has made it clear they will crash the economy next year by threatening the full faith and credit of the United States”, by seeking cuts to social security and Medicare, the largest government pension and healthcare programmes for seniors, in exchange for a debt-limit increase. “I will not yield,” Biden said.
The comments came as Democrats are trying to deflect increasingly powerful Republican attacks on their handling of the economy, particularly high inflation, ahead of the November midterm elections.
Polls in recent weeks have shifted in favour of Republican candidates as the effect of the June Supreme Court decision over abortion, which had boosted Democrats, has started to fade. Concerns about elevated prices have returned to the fore.
This has led Biden and the Democrats to try draw a sharper contrast between their stewardship of the economy and the Republican plans, which are heavy on tax cuts and deregulation, while also vowing to cut government spending.
While Republicans say that their policies will help curb the excessive government spending that they believe has fuelled inflation, the White House counters that they will only lead to more instability in markets and fiscal laxity.
If they do win control of Congress, Republicans are expected next year to push an extension of Donald Trump-era income tax cuts, the repeal of tax increases enacted this year on wealthy Americans and large corporations, and the likely insistence on tough budget cuts in order to approve any increase in the federal debt limit.
“Just like anything else, there comes a point in time where, OK, we’ll provide you more money, but you got to change your current behaviour,” Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, told Punchbowl News this week. “We’re not just going to keep lifting your credit card limit, right.”
Biden acknowledged that the polls had moved back towards the Republicans in recent weeks but expects that will change in the final stretch. “Polls have been all over the place. I think we’re going to see one more shift back to our side in the closing days.”