“We’re not going to default,” the House speaker pledged, but he also called for budget cuts without offering specifics.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that he will meet with President Biden on Wednesday and is looking for a deal to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for unspecified cuts to the federal budget.
“I want to find a reasonable and responsible way that we can lift the debt ceiling but take control of this runaway spending,” McCarthy said during an interview Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
McCarthy said cuts to Social Security and Medicare were “off the table” but did not rule out cuts to defense spending, which some Republicans in his caucus have resisted.
The comment comes amid a protracted and increasingly public fight between the newly elevated Republican House speaker, the White House and Democrats in the Senate over raising the country’s $31.4 trillion debt limit, which is expected to be reached sometime in June.
Biden said on Thursday in Virginia that the country’s recent economic gains would be at risk because of Republican opposition to raising the debt ceiling.
“What in God’s name would the Americans give up the progress we’ve made for the chaos they’re suggesting?” Biden asked. Moments later, he added, “I will veto everything they send me. Not after all the progress we’ve made and how far we’ve come.”
“In the United States of America, we pay our debts,” he said. Also last week, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen wrote a letter to McCarthy saying a default could cause “irreparable harm to the U.S. economy.”
Not raising the debt limit, according to economists, could cause the United States to default, sparking a major panic on Wall Street and leading to millions of job losses.
“Look,” McCarthy said Sunday, “we’re not going to default.” Before the borrowing limit is reached in June, McCarthy said, “the responsible thing to do is sit down like two adults and start having that discussion.
