According to a new poll, a majority of Republicans believe that congressional Republicans should not compromise with President Biden on core GOP issues, even if it makes addressing the nation’s critical problems more difficult.
In a Pew Research poll released on Tuesday, 64 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said GOP members of Congress should “stand up” to Biden, while 34 percent said they should work with Biden, even if it means making concessions that will disappoint GOP voters.
On the other side of the divide, 58 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents believe Biden should work with congressional Republicans even if it displeases some of his supporters. Another 41% of Democrats agreed that Biden should “stand up” to Republicans.
This partisan divide on a compromise will almost certainly come into play when Biden and congressional Republicans clash over the debt ceiling in the coming months.
The United States reached its debt ceiling earlier this month, prompting the Treasury Department to take “extraordinary measures” to avoid a default. These measures will give Congress until early June to address the debt ceiling.
Republicans, on the other hand, have vowed to tie a debt ceiling increase to spending cuts, which is unacceptable to Biden and congressional Democrats, who have advocated for a clean increase in the debt limit.
With the White House refusing to negotiate with Republicans thus far, both parties are bracing for a showdown with significant economic ramifications. If Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling and the United States defaults on its obligations, it could spark a global economic crisis.
The latest Pew Research poll also revealed that 56 percent of Republicans are worried that, with their newly won majority in the House, GOP lawmakers will not devote enough time to investigating Biden.
House Republicans have vowed to look into Biden on a number of fronts, including his family’s finances, his administration’s border policies, and his handling of classified materials, ever since they won a narrow midterm election victory in November.
But 65% of the general public said they are worried that the GOP will concentrate too much on looking into Biden.
A total of 5,152 members of Pew Research’s American Trends Panel participated in the survey, which had a margin of error of 1.7 percentage points and was conducted from January 18 to January 24.
