Biden and McCarthy will meet on Monday to resume talks on US debt.

The agent of USA, Joe Bidenand the speaker of the House of Representatives, the Republican kevin mccarthywill meet Monday to discuss the debt limit after a “productive” phone call as Biden returned to Washington, the House’s top Republican leader said Sunday.

McCarthy, speaking to reporters after the call, said there had been positive discussions about resolving the crisis and that talks at the staff level would resume later on Sunday.

Biden previously said he would be willing to cut spending along with tax adjustments to reach a deal, but that the latest offer from Republicans on lifting the government debt ceiling was “unacceptable”. The White House has yet to comment on his call.

Before leaving Hiroshima, Japan, after a meeting of G7 leaders, Biden suggested that some Republicans in Congress were willing to make the United States default on its debt so that the disastrous results would prevent the Democratic president from winning re-election in 2024. .

There are less than two weeks left until June 1, when the Treasury Department has warned that the federal government may be unable to pay all its debts. That would trigger a default that could throw financial markets into chaos and send interest rates skyrocketing.

“Much of what they have already proposed is simply, frankly, unacceptable,” he said before returning to Washington. “It is time for Republicans to accept that you cannot reach a bipartisan deal alone, solely on your partisan terms. They also have to move.”

The talks have become increasingly heated over the past two days. Democratic and Republican negotiators said Friday’s meetings at the Capitol they produced no progress and the two sides did not meet on Saturday. Instead, each has once again characterized the other’s position as extremist.

The Democratic president said he believed he had the authority to invoke the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to raise the debt ceiling without Congress, but it was not clear there would be enough time left to try to use that unproven legal theory to avoid default. .

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a television interview Sunday that June 1 remains a “deadline” to raise the federal debt ceiling and told NBC News the odds were “quite low” de that the government will collect enough revenue to pay its bills until June 15, when more tax revenue will be received.

A source familiar with the negotiations said Republicans had proposed increasing defense spending while cutting overall spending. The source said the Biden administration had proposed keeping discretionary non-defense spending unchanged for next year.

Concern over default weighs on the markets. The United States was forced to pay record interest rates on a recent debt offering and concerns over a lack of deal weighed on US stocks on Friday.

The Republican-led House of Representatives last month passed a law that would cut a wide swath of public spending by 8% next year. Democrats say that would force average cuts of at least 22% in programs like education and law enforcement, a figure that top Republicans have not disputed.

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.

Source: Reuters