President Joe Biden called top congressional leaders to invite them to a May 9 meeting to discuss the debt limit, the White House said Monday.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden called top congressional leaders to invite them to a May 9 meeting to discuss the debt limit, the White House said Monday.
The White House announced the invitation just over an hour after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told US lawmakers Monday that her department’s ability to use special accounting maneuvers to stay within the debt limit could be exhausted as soon as June 1.
Biden has said so far that he is unwilling to offer concessions to House Republicans in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, while House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said lawmakers in his party would not increase the spending limit without cuts to the federal budget.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, released a statement before next week’s meeting reiterating that Democrats would seek a clean increase.
“For generations, Congress has made spending and revenue decisions as part of the annual budget process, which is currently underway,” the two Democrats said, referring to Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan. “That is the appropriate place to debate and discuss our nation’s fiscal picture – not in a hostage-situation in which extreme MAGA Republicans try to impose their radical agenda on America.”
Biden also spoke to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is expected to attend the meeting, the White House said.
The US hit its current statutory limit of $31.4 trillion in debt in January, and the Treasury Department has been staving off a possible default on federal obligations by using special accounting maneuvers since then. Top officials from the Federal Reserve and Treasury have said a default could prove catastrophic to the US economy, pushing up borrowing costs on credit cards, mortgages, and auto loans while battering markets.
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