Biden concludes “optimistic” after meeting on government debt with McCarthy

A long-awaited meeting this Monday between the president of the United States, Joe Biden, and the Republican senator and speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, ended with the president’s hope that an agreement will finally be reached. an agreement on the debt limit of the federal government.

“We are optimistic, we can make some progress,” Biden told reporters and stressed, as he has been doing for days, that defaulting on acquired debts is not an option.

The meeting took place at the White House, where Biden, after returning from a trip to Japan for the G-7 Summit, thanked McCarthy for his appearance in the Oval Office.

The fears are based on the fact that the government could run out of liquidity and could not meet its financial obligations as close as June 1.

The Democratic president has said he has offered Democratic opponents formulas to increase the country’s $31.4 trillion debt limit so that the US government can continue to pay its bills, such as interest on bonds, stipends for US retirees and payments to health care providers or the salaries of government employees and contractors.

“Americans would suffer a real blow to their economic well-being,” Biden insisted this afternoon. “In fact, the rest of the world would have it too,” she predicted.

For his part, McCarthy leads the Republican caucus, which opposes continuing to increase the budget to increase public spending, said they had had a “very productive conversation.”

“We have disagreements,” said McCarthy, who said they both agree on the need to “change course, that our debt is too big,” referring to the large number needed to make payments.

“Ultimately we will be able to find common ground, strengthen our economy, take care of this debt, and most importantly, get this government to act again to curb inflation, make us less dependent on China, make our allotment system work, when complete,” the Republican recommended.

The talks have become increasingly heated over the past two days. Democratic and Republican negotiators said Friday’s meetings on Capitol Hill yielded no breakthrough and the two sides did not meet on Saturday.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a television interview Sunday that June 1 remains a “deadline” for raising the federal debt ceiling, telling NBCNews that the chances that the government will raise enough revenue to pay its bills until June 15, when more tax revenue will come in, are “quite low.”

A source familiar with the negotiations said Republicans had proposed increasing defense spending while cutting overall spending.

The source also said House Republicans wanted to extend tax cuts passed under then-President Donald Trump, which would add $3.5 trillion to the federal debt.

With Republicans holding a slim majority in the House of Representatives and Democrats tight control of the Senate, no deal can pass without bipartisan support.

[Parte de la información para este reporte provino de The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse y Reuters]

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