美国总统乔·拜登(Joe Biden)周三加大了对共和党人的压力，邀请几家主要银行和公司的负责人讨论美国债务违约的危险。如果国会不采取行动，这可能会在不到两周的时间内发生，对经济造成灾难性影响。
“这是不对的，”拜登在谈到共和党持续拒绝投票提高债务上限时说。“而且很危险。”
“在我看来，共和党人提供的道路将把我们带到悬崖边，并造成不可挽回的经济损失，”他补充道。“所以让我们投票，今天就结束这场混乱。”
参议院原定于周三下午就取消债务上限举行程序性投票，需要60票才能通过。参议院少数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔表示，参议院的共和党人将阻挠众议院通过的一项措施，该措施将暂停债务限额，避免潜在的违约，直至2022年12月。至少需要10名共和党人加入所有参议院民主党人的行列，才能打破共和党的阻挠，让简单多数票通过该法案。
投票前，拜登会见了摩根大通首席执行官杰米·戴蒙、美国银行首席执行官布莱恩·莫伊尼汉、花旗首席执行官简·弗雷泽。他承认民主党人自己在提高债务上限时面临政治风险，共和党人可能会在2022年中期选举中反对这一风险。
拜登说:“如果他们不想做这项工作，就让开。“我们会承受压力，我们会做到的。我们会做到的。让我们做吧。让民主党投票提高债务限额，不要破坏或进一步拖延。”
他要求与会者讨论违约对美国人的影响。纳斯达克首席执行官亚丁娜·弗里德曼阐述了退休账户的危险。
她说:“我们必须意识到，超过一半的美国成年人直接或间接在股票市场上有钱，所以那些储蓄账户、退休账户、养老金，他们的价值都会大幅下降，这当然会让他们对自己管理生活、储蓄和退休计划的能力感到不确定。
财政部长珍妮特·耶伦用严肃的语言描述了违约意味着什么。
“我们可能会经历衰退。数百万个工作岗位将会失去。这种痛苦会持续到危机解决之后。
“数百万人没有足够的储蓄来放弃预期的支票。对于这些家庭和企业来说，影响将是毁灭性的。举一个令人心碎的例子，数百万依靠社会保障获得支持的老年人将不得不做出可怕的选择，比如决定是付房租还是买杂货，”她警告说。
“这已经开始对经济造成一些损害，”花旗集团首席执行官简·弗雷泽说。“这会伤害消费者。这会伤害小企业。”
“简单地说，我们现在正在玩火，”她说。
摩根大通首席执行官杰米·戴蒙(Jamie Dimon)表示:“这种影响将是连锁反应，所以第一天会很糟糕，但连锁反应和接下来的几周可能会从衰退到全球经济的彻底灾难。他补充说，违约可能会损害美国在世界舞台上的形象。拜登补充说，违约将使Xi和普京等领导人所支持的独裁是政府的高级形式的观点更加可信。
总统会见首席执行官的前一天，他表示愿意修改参议院规则，取消这种情况下60票的要求，而是要求民主党人拥有的简单多数票。
当被问及民主党是否正在考虑这种可能性时，拜登周二晚间表示:“我认为这是一种真正的可能性。
但每个民主党参议员都需要同意这一选择，周二晚些时候，弗吉尼亚州民主党参议员乔·曼钦(Joe Manchin)表示，他反对在这种情况下援引所谓的“核选择”来为阻挠议事破例。周三上午，曼钦表示，他的立场“没有任何变化”。
相反，共和党人希望民主党人走一条政治上更站不住脚、程序上更繁琐的路线。这将迫使他们选择一个巨大的美元数额来提高限额，而不仅仅是暂停限额——在共和党人袖手旁观的情况下，将他们与这个数字捆绑在一起。
此前，国会议员已经80次暂停债务上限，其中三次是在时任总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)执政期间，民主党人与共和党人联手暂停债务上限。
麦康奈尔，R-Ky。曾多次表示，民主党人应该不得不提高债务限额，以支付拜登议程中尚未通过的部分可能数万亿美元的成本，尽管债务限额必须提高，以涵盖特朗普政府时期在统一的共和党支持下已经发生的支出。
事实上，根据美联社的一项分析，近98%的债务是在拜登就职前产生的。
拜登本周两次表示——周一和周二——他计划与麦康奈尔会谈。2011年，两人在化解另一场围绕债务上限的党派斗争中发挥了关键作用。
共和党对暂停债务上限的反对令拜登头疼，他一直试图与国会民主党议员就数万亿美元的基础设施、新社会项目和应对气候变化支出达成协议。
Biden enlists CEOs to pressure GOP as potential US default looms
President Joe Biden ratcheted up pressure on Republicans Wednesday, hosting the heads of several major banks and corporations to discuss the dangers of the U.S. defaulting on its debts. That could happen in less than two weeks if Congress doesn't act, with a catastrophic impact on the economy.
"It's not right," Biden said of Republicans' ongoing refusal to vote to raise the debt ceiling. "And it's dangerous."
"The path Republicans offer would take us right to the brink and cause irreparable economic damage in my view," he added. "So let's vote, and end this mess today."
The Senate was scheduled to hold a procedural vote on lifting the debt ceiling Wednesday afternoon, which requires 60 votes to pass. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said Republicans in the Senate will filibuster a House-passed measure that would suspend the debt limit -- and avoid a potential default -- until December 2022. At least 10 Republicans would need to join all Senate Democrats to break a GOP filibuster and allow a simple majority vote to pass the bill.
Ahead of the vote, Biden met with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, Citi CEO Jane Fraser. He acknowledged the political risk Democrats face in lifting the debt ceiling themselves, which Republicans could campaign against in the 2022 midterm elections.
"If they don't want to do the job, just get out of the way," Biden said. "We'll take the heat, we'll do it. We will do it. Let us do it. Let the Democrats vote to raise the debt limit without destruction or any further delays."
He asked participants to discuss the impacts of a default on Americans. Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman spelled out the danger to retirement accounts.
“We have to realize that well over half of the adult Americans have money in the stock market, either directly or indirectly, and so those savings accounts, those retirement accounts, the pensions, they'll all experience a significant sharp drop in their values, which, of course, makes them feel less certain about their ability to -- to manage their lives and their savings and plan for retirement,” she said.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen used grave language to describe what a default would mean.
“We would likely experience a recession. Millions of jobs would be lost. And the pain would endure well past the resolution of the crisis,” she said.
“Millions are without sufficient savings to forgo an expected check. And for these households and businesses, the impact would be devastating. To take one heartbreaking example, millions of seniors who depend on Social Security for their support would have to make awful choices, such as deciding whether to pay rent or buy groceries,” she warned.
"It's already beginning to cause some damage in the economy," Citi's CEO Jane Fraser said. "It will hurt consumers. It will hurt small businesses."
"We are, simply put, playing with fire right now," she said.
“The effects would be cascading, so day one would be bad, but the cascading effects and the ensuing weeks could go anywhere from a recession, to a complete catastrophe for the global economy,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said. He added the default could tarnish America’s image on this world stage -- and Biden added the default would give credence to the argument autocracy is the superior form of government, espoused by leaders like Xi and Putin.
The president's meeting with CEOs comes a day after he expressed openness to revising the Senate rules to do away with the need for 60 votes in this instance -- instead requiring a simple majority, which Democrats have.
"I think that's a real possibility," Biden said late Tuesday, when asked if Democrats were considering that possibility.
But every Democratic senator would need to be on board with that option, and late Tuesday, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he opposed invoking the so-called "nuclear option" to make an exception to the filibuster in this case. On Wednesday morning, Manchin said "nothing changes" in his position.
Instead, Republicans want Democrats to take a more politically untenable -- and procedurally cumbersome route. That would force them to choose a massive dollar amount to raise the limit to, rather than just suspending it -- tying them to that number as Republicans stand aside.
Lawmakers have suspended the debt ceiling 80 times before, including three times when Democrats joined with Republicans to do so under then-President Donald Trump.
McConnell, R-Ky., has said repeatedly that Democrats should have to hike the debt limit to cover the cost of potentially trillions in yet-passed parts of Biden's agenda, though the debt limit must be raised to cover spending that already took place under the Trump administration with unified GOP support.
In fact, nearly 98 percent of that debt was incurred before Biden took office, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.
Biden has said twice this week -- Monday and Tuesday -- that he planned to speak with McConnell. The two played key roles in dissolving another partisan fight over the debt ceiling in 2011.
The GOP opposition to suspending the debt ceiling has created a headache for Biden, who has been trying to reach a deal with Democratic members of Congress on trillions of dollars in spending on physical infrastructure, new social programs and combating climate change.
