President Joe Biden and kevin mccarthyhis main Republican opponent on the debt ceilingthey will resume negotiations today for a quick agreement and avoid a dangerous default of the United States.
Biden, who has just returned from Japan where he attended the G7 summit, will receive the Republican leader of the House of Representatives at the White House at 5:30 p.m. in Washington (6:30 p.m. in Argentina), while the teams of both have already resumed talksfollowing a phone call from Biden’s presidential plane to McCarthy.
The Biden administration refuses to cut public spending, as the Republicans want, and proposes for its part to reduce certain expenses and increase taxes on the richest and on companies that today benefit from tax refunds, which is opposed by supporters of McCarthy.
The speaker of the United States House of Representatives affirmed this Monday that the package of measures on the debt ceiling that is being negotiated will be acceptable to the majority of Republican legislators: “I strongly believe that what we’re negotiating right now, a majority of Republicans will see as the right point to put us on the right track.”McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Biden warned him that he would reject a deal “that protects billions of dollars in subsidies to Big Oil while jeopardizing the health care of 21 million Americans,” saying that “The United States has never defaulted on its debts. And that will never be the case”.
Next June 1st is the deadline for congressmen to raise the debt ceiling so that the United States does not fall into a catastrophic default.
In that case, the United States could not reimburse holders of US Treasury bonds, king of world finance, nor pay some salaries to officials or veterans’ pensions, or social services, among others.
In 2011, there was only the threat of bankruptcy and this caused, for the first time, the United States to lose its precious triple A credit rating, the best of rating agencies.
Concrete effects are already being felt, warned the Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellenwho said that “investors have become more reluctant to hold sovereign debt that matures in June.”
Meanwhile, the shadow of donald trump overfly the negotiations. The former Republican president urged his party on May 20 to refuse to raise the debt limit, which would trigger default, if Democrats do not agree to cut spending.
On Sunday, the White House spokeswoman, Marine Jan-Pierredeplored the “extreme partisan demands” put forward by the Conservatives.
McCarthy, in turn, accused the “left wing of the Democratic party” of being “at his command”.
If disagreements persist, Biden is left with one recourse: invoke a section of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which stipulates that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, (…) shall not be questioned”, that is, the expenses already voted must be able to be paid. Although the president and his entourage remain skeptical of this possibility.
Source: Ambito
