Biden, McCarthy meeting ends with no deal on debt ceiling
US President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy could not reach an agreement Monday on how to raise the U.S. government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling with just 10 days before a possible default that could sink the U.S. economy, but vowed to keep talking.
The Democratic president and the top congressional Republican have struggled to make a deal, as McCarthy pressures the White House to agree to spending cuts in the federal budget that Biden considers “extreme,” and the president pushes new taxes that Republicans have rejected, Reuters reported.
Both sides stressed the need to avoid default with a bipartisan deal after Monday evening’s meeting, however, and signaled that they’d be talking regularly in coming days.
A source familiar with the situation said that White House negotiators were returning to Capitol Hill on Monday night to resume talks.
McCarthy told reporters after over an hour of talks with Biden that negotiators are “going to get together, work through the night” to try to find common ground.
federal budget.
Democrats and Republicans have until June 1 to increase the government’s self-borrowing limit or trigger an unprecedented debt default that economists warn could bring on a recession.
A failure to lift the debt ceiling would trigger a default that would shake financial markets and drive interest rates higher on everything from car payments to credit cards.