WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 17: U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) attend the Friends of Ireland Luncheon on the U.S. Capitol on Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2023 in Washington, DC. Biden joined Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and other members of Congress for the standard St. Patrick’s Day Friends of Ireland Luncheon. (D-MA). (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — White House negotiators and representatives of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy resumed debt ceiling talks Monday morning, as President Joe Biden prepared to fulfill with McCarthy head to head with only 10 days to go until the U.S. risks default.
The talks got here after a dramatic weekend during which negotiations broke down Friday over an apparent impasse on government spending levels but resumed several hours later.
Biden and McCarthy spoke by phone Sunday evening, a conversation they described as “productive” and which could set the stage for anticipated progress toward a deal in the primary a part of this week. Biden and McCarthy are set to fulfill at 5:30 p.m. ET Monday within the Oval Office.
The White House team, composed of presidential counselor Steve Ricchetti, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young and legislative affairs director Louisa Terrell, declined to talk with reporters as they walked into the Capitol for talks with McCarthy’s side Monday.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reaffirmed on Sunday that June 1 is the federal government’s “hard deadline” to boost the debt limit or face a possible first ever national debt default.
“We expect to be unable to pay all of our bills in early June, and possibly as soon as June 1,” Yellen told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“My assessment is that the chances of reaching June 15 while having the ability to pay all of our bills is kind of low,” she said, with the caveat that there would all the time be uncertainty about exact revenue and payments.
Each Biden and McCarthy have acknowledged that considered one of the important sticking points within the talks stays the query of spending caps, a key GOP demand but a red line to date for the White House. Raising the debt limit wouldn’t authorize recent spending, but Republicans have insisted on sweeping cuts to government outlays as a part of a deal to hike the borrowing limit.
“The underlying issue here is that Democrats, since they took the bulk, have been hooked on spending. And that is going to stop. We will spend lower than we spent last 12 months,” McCarthy said to reporters Monday morning within the Capitol.
Biden is hoping to succeed in a debt limit deal that will push the following deadline out past the 2024 presidential election. But House Republicans, who to date have endorsed only a one-year hike, say that if Biden wants more time, then he might want to comply with much more cuts.
Over the weekend, the president also faulted Republicans for demanding that massive chunks of federal discretionary spending be exempted from their proposed topline budget cuts, including defense and potentially veterans health advantages.
If these categories were actually to be exempted, Biden explained, then cuts to all the opposite discretionary spending would have to be much deeper with a view to make up the difference.
Across-the-board cuts like these “make absolutely no sense in any respect,” Biden said Sunday in Japan, where he was attending the Group of Seven Summit. “It is time for Republicans to simply accept that there isn’t any bipartisan deal to be made solely, solely, on their partisan terms.”