President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have a pivotal meeting coming up on the impasse over the debt ceiling. Washington is racing to strike a budget compromise and raise the nation’s borrowing limit in time to avert a potentially devastating federal default as soon as next week. The White House negotiating team arrived Monday at the Capitol for another round of talks ahead of the afternoon Biden-McCarthy meeting at the White House. After a weekend of start-stop talks, both Biden and McCarthy appeared upbeat as they face a deadline, as soon as June 1, when the government could run out of cash to pay its bills. McCarthy took a sharper tone critical of Biden on Monday.
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are set to meet at the White House at a pivotal moment as Washington works to strike a budget compromise and raise the nation’s borrowing limit in time to avert a potentially chaotic federal default.
Negotiators for the White House arrived Monday back at the Capitol for talks ahead of the afternoon meeting between the Democratic president and the new Republican speaker that will be critical as they race to prevent a looming debt crisis as soon as next week.
After a weekend of start-stop talks, both men have appeared upbeat as they face a deadline, as soon as June 1, when the government could run out of cash to pay its bills.
“What we have to do here is get the spending addiction to stop,” McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters as he arrived at the Capitol.
“The Democrats and the president refusing to even to negotiate, no household would run this way,” he said. “That is why we go from crisis to crisis.”
McCarthy said as he has many times before: “We’re going to spend less than we did last year.”
The contours of an agreement appear within reach, and the negotiations have narrowed on a 2024 budget year cap that would be key to resolving the standoff. Republicans have insisted next year’s spending cannot be more than current 2023 levels, but Democrats have refused to accept the steeper cuts McCarthy’s team first proposed.
A budget deal would unlock a separate vote to lift the debt ceiling, now $31 trillion, to allow more borrowing to pay bills already incurred. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that June 1 is a “hard deadline.
