Biden, McCarthy in race against time for debt ceiling deal

May 23, 2023 (MLN): U.S. President Joe Biden said he was 'optimistic' as he met with top Republican Kevin McCarthy for their first one-on-one talks in months on Monday, with just 10 days left to stop a calamitous debt default.

The high-stakes White House meeting came after Biden returned from a trip to Asia early to hammer out a deal ahead of the US Treasury's June 1 cutoff date for Congress to authorize more borrowing.

Debt limits are raised periodically to cover repayments on loans that have already been approved and spent, but House Republicans are insisting this time that averting a default must be paired with deep cuts to bring down the country's $31.4 trillion debt.

The on-again, off-again discussions sputtered through the weekend, with McCarthy's team and White House negotiators meeting for more than two hours on Sunday night and another three on Monday.

McCarthy told reporters in Congress ahead of meeting Biden that no agreement had yet been struck but added that negotiations were in "the right place to put us on the right path." as APP reported.

After the meeting, he told the reporters that 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.

He repeated a favored analogy casting the US debt as a child's credit card, and adding that responsible parents wouldn't keep upping the limit without requiring their offspring to rein in their spending.

Democrats and Republicans have until June 1 to increase the debt ceiling or trigger an unprecedented debt default.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reminded again on Monday how little time is left, in her third letter to Congress in three weeks, she said it was "highly likely" that the agency will be unlikely to meet all U.S. government payment obligations by early June, and as early as June 1.

Without congressional action to raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, this would trigger the first-ever U.S. default.

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