2023-05-27 18:40:37
© Reuters. Joe Biden and McCarthy at Casa Branca May 22, 2023 REUTERS/Leah Millis
Por Moira Warburton e Katharine Jackson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Saturday he was making “progress” in talks with Democratic President Joe Biden on raising the federal government’s debt ceiling, with the country at risk. of a default in just over a week.
Time is short. The Treasury Department said on Friday that the government will run out of funds to pay all its bills by June 5 unless Congress takes action, a slightly longer but firmer deadline than the previous default forecast. still on June 1st.
And any agreement in principle between Biden and Speaker of the House McCarthy would be the start of what could easily be a week-long process of following up legislation in a narrowly and bitterly divided Congress.
“We don’t have a deal,” McCarthy told reporters. “We are not there yet. We made progress, we worked early this morning. And we are back now.”
Hardline Republicans have threatened to block any bill that fails to meet their expectations, which include deep spending cuts.
Progressive Democrats also threatened to withhold support for some of the aforementioned concessions, especially the imposition of new work requirements on federal anti-poverty programs.
“It’s very close and I’m optimistic,” Biden told reporters on Friday.
Republicans control the House by a margin of 222 to 213, and Democrats have a majority in the Senate, 51 to 49, a very narrow path to pass any deal between the Democratic president and the Republican speaker of the House.
Republicans sought to drastically reduce government spending for the next 10 years to slow the growth of the US debt, which is now equal to the economy’s annual output.
But the interim agreement would likely fall far short of that goal.
The two sides have tentatively reached an agreement that would raise the debt ceiling enough to meet the country’s borrowing needs until the November 2024 presidential election.
(Reporting by Moira Warburton and Katharine Jackson)
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