President described how ‘no one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed’ during brief speech
Joe Biden celebrated Congress’s approval of a debt-ceiling suspension in a speech delivered from the Oval Office on Friday night, a day after the Senate passed the compromise bill brokered by the president and the Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy.
Biden described the bill’s enactment as “essential to the progress we’ve made over the last few years” in “keeping full faith and credit of the United States of America and passing a budget that continues to grow our economy and reflects our values as a nation”.
“That’s why I’m speaking to you tonight: to report on a crisis averted and what we’re doing to protect America’s future,” Biden said.
Biden said he would sign the bill Saturday, with just two days left before the 5 June default deadline. Once enacted, the law will suspend the government’s borrowing limit until January 2025, ensuring the issue will not resurface before the next presidential election.
The speech, which marked Biden’s first formal address from the Oval Office, came less than 24 hours after the Senate passed the debt ceiling bill in a bipartisan vote of 63 to 36. A day earlier, the bill had passed the Republican-controlled House in a bipartisan vote of 314 to 117.
The signing of the bill will avert the first federal default in US history, which could have upended the American economy and global markets. Economists have warned that a federal default could cause the US unemployment rate to double while significantly damaging America’s gross domestic product (GDP).
