Manchin seeks bipartisan cooperation on debt ceiling

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Wednesday he’s seeking bipartisan support on measures to raise the debt ceiling and scrutinize social safety net programs in order to avoid a default on federal debt that would have global economic repercussions.

“We have to work together. It’s bipartisan, it’s always been bipartisan as far as the debt ceiling,” Manchin said on Fox Business. “I think what we have to do is realize that we have a problem. We have a debt problem. We have $31.4 trillion of public debt right now.”

The White House said this week it’s not open to negotiations related to raising the debt ceiling, arguing it’s something Congress needs to do automatically. But conservative Republicans in Congress want cuts to social spending programs and have been using the debt ceiling as leverage.

Manchin said he spoke to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) about making commitments to scrutinize Social Security and Medicare in exchange for GOP support on raising the debt ceiling.

“Let’s take the trust funds — Medicare, Social Security, Highway Trust. You can’t let those go defunct. What we’re saying is, we have a Trust Act. We would put bipartisan, bicameral committees together to look at each one of the trusts and come up with solutions of how you fix it,” he said, speaking from Davos, Switzerland, where business elites and politicians gather every year to discuss public policy. 

“I’ve talked to Kevin McCarthy briefly about that. I’m going to spend more time to find out how we can bring things together, and we should do that. That guarantees it comes to the floor for a vote,” he added.

The U.S. reached its federal borrowing cap on Thursday, forcing the Treasury Department to start using special accounting techniques to make sure the government can keep writing checks.

Those measures include withholding funds from a government employee retirement plan and a Postal Service retirement plan.

“The period of time that extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty, including the challenges of forecasting the payments and receipts of the U.S. Government months into the future,” Yellen wrote to McCarthy in a letter dated Thursday.

“I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” she wrote.

Manchin’s openness to additional scrutiny on Social Security and other possible austerity measures drew ire from progressive economists.

“It’s economically, fiscally, and morally irresponsible for the new House majority to be playing games with the debt limit and threatening an economic crisis – and there’s absolutely no reason for Sen. Manchin or anyone else to play along,” Lindsay Owens of the Groundwork Collaborative think tank said in a statement.

“We saw this move in 2011 when politicians negotiated over the debt limit and ended up strangling the economy with years of devastating cuts for workers and families. We can’t let that happen again,” she added.

Updated: 3:38 p.m.