The White House and congressional Republicans are racing to strike a deal to avert a U.S. default on Saturday as high-risk negotiations over a bipartisan financial pact drag. long until the weekend.
After a round of late-night discussions ended with no agreement on Friday, negotiators for US president Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy made another attempt to settle them. their final differences on Saturday.
“We’ve made progress, we’ve been productive since early this morning and now we’re back on track. Some things we have to get done,” McCarthy told reporters. “We have to make sure we get the right deal for the American people.”
He nods to the fact that the deal with Biden will involve tough compromises.
“People won’t like what the end of the deal is. . . on both sides,” he said. “Is that all I want? No, it must be approved by the Senate and signed by the President. But I firmly believe that people if they sat back and looked at this, from all over America, they would say, ‘You know what? it’s a much better product.”
Biden expressed optimism about the talks Friday night before leaving Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, where he is monitoring the final stages of the negotiations.
Although both sides are working together on a deal that would lift the debt limit for two years and limit government spending for the same period, a person familiar with the negotiations said the Party’s request Republicans tying the new job requirements to anti-poverty programs remains a difficult point.
The White House and Congress have until June 5 to enact legislation to raise the country’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, or else the US will run out of money to pay all of its bills, according to a report. The latest estimates by Janet Yellen, US Secretary of the Treasury, released on Friday.
If no deal is done, the United States will face a severe default on its government debt that could rattle global financial markets, trigger a severe recession and damage the creditworthiness of the United States.
House Republicans have vowed to give their lawmakers at least 72 hours to review the debt ceiling law before voting, then move it to the Senate for final passage in Congress. .
Leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties will need to limit the number of dropouts in their ranks to ensure any deal gets through, with hardliners on on both sides are likely to reject the emerging compromise.
But many lawmakers and the White House may see the pact as necessary to avoid a broader and self-inflicted financial and economic crisis with less than 18 months to go. elect the next president.
Shalanda Young, the White House budget director, and Steve Ricchetti, a senior aide to Biden, chaired the negotiations on behalf of the president, while Patrick McHenry, chairman of the House financial services committee and Garret Graves, a Louisiana lawmaker. , did the same thing for McCarthy.
The speaker gathered with McCarthy and Graves at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, though they briefly left to buy Chipotle Mexican takeout for lunch.
