Amid debt ceiling standoff, why Joe Biden is refusing to negotiate with Republicans

As President Joe Biden welcomes Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for a highly anticipated one-on-one meeting Wednesday, the White House is making one thing clear: There will be no negotiations on the debt ceiling.

Biden has drawn a hardline against entertaining spending cuts pushed by House Republicans amid their brinkmanship on raising the amount the U.S. can borrow. 

It reflects a broader White House strategy. When Republicans reveal the domestic programs they want to cut, the White House is counting on the move proving so unpopular that enough House Republicans will abandon their demands for Congress to act. 

Biden and Democrats are haunted by the debt ceiling standoff of 2011, when then-Vice President Biden in the Obama presidency, convened a bipartisan group of lawmakers as Republicans in a new GOP-controlled House demanded deficit reduction.

Although a full-scale crisis including default was averted when Obama agreed to $2 trillion in spending cuts, there was damage nonetheless: The U.S. experienced its first credit-rating downgrade and the stock market plunged.