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This Wednesday afternoon Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy will meet in the Oval Office to discuss the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling. This is the first time the speaker has met with the president after assuming the top job in the House of Representatives and he does so in the midst of a heated discussion on how to raise the debt limit.
This meeting jeopardizes the ability of the United States to pay its debt, something that has never happened, but to default, economic specialists believe that it could trigger a global recessionly damage the country’s credit rating.
While the step that Biden and McCarthy will take by meeting is important, so is that neither of them promises to make things easy why the president of the nation is willing to increase the debt limit without conditionswhile the speaker of the House of Representatives wants to meet his goal through cuts in federal spending.
The White House argues that Republicans should expose what cuts they want in federal spending. The administration also points out that Republicans approved “clean” debt ceiling increases under President Donald Trump. McCarthy, for his part, argues that if the nation spends too much money, it should cut back. Republicans have floated various ideas on how to make the cuts, including bringing federal spending back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.
“The only thing I’m really going to measure is whether you want to negotiate or you want to play politics. I’m not going to play these games. So you tell me when you want to negotiate. If you think you can beat me, I’ll be reasonable. So the sooner we sit down, the sooner this won’t become a problem. But eventually we’re going to have to dance together. So when do you want to play the music, now or later?” McCarthy told Punchbowl News.
This morning the Republicans met in Congress to address the issue and while they have floated various ideas, including cuts in defense spending and agencies like the EPA, nothing has gained momentum yet.