President Biden said he is expected to meet with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and other congressional leaders on Tuesday to follow up on their meeting last week on the debt limit, and said he thinks a deal can be reached.
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“I think so,” Biden told reporters on Sunday when asked if their next meeting would be on Tuesday.
Washington is under increasing pressure to find an agreement to lift the debt ceiling. before June 1the approximate date that the federal government will run out of cash to pay its obligations.
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A meeting scheduled for Friday was canceled the day before after discussions with staff did not bring significant progress. But that seems to have changed over the weekend.
HOUSE ACCEPTS MCCARTHY CEILING DEBT BULLETIN BY TWO VOTES; FOUR REPUBLICANS VOTE NO
Staff members of the top four leaders of Congress and the White House reportedly met on Saturday for further discussions.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she “looks forward” to the direction of negotiations at the G-7 finance ministers’ meeting in Japan.
McCarthy says BIDEN PUSHING FEET ON DEBT CEILING: ‘THEY WANT DEFAULT MORE THAN DEALS’
“I think the negotiations are going on very actively. I was told they found some common ground,” Yellen told the Wall Street Journal.
For months, Biden and Senate Democrats have insisted that they can only support a “clean” increase in the debt limit, with no preconditions on federal spending levels. But Republicans in the House and Senate have coalesced around a McCarthy-California-led bill that would raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion in exchange for cutting discretionary spending to FY 2022 levels, capping growth for 10 years, and reversing some of Biden’s rulings. . key progressive agenda items.
While the Democrats have made it clear that they oppose the GOP billBiden appeared to acknowledge that he could potentially be forced to support some form of tougher work requirements for federal benefits, although he ruled out tougher access to Medicaid.
“I voted for the tougher assistance programs that are now mandated by law, but for Medicaid it’s a different story. And so I’m waiting to find out what their exact offer is,” Biden said.
McCarthy Says DEBT CEILING DEAL NEEDED FOR ‘NEXT WEEK’ TO MAKE JUNE 1 DEADLINE
The President did not elaborate on how the talks between headquarters are progressing, but described himself as an “optimist.”
“It’s not good to characterize negotiations in the middle of negotiations,” Biden said Sunday. “I remain an optimist because I am a born optimist. But I do think there is a desire on their part, as there is on us, to reach an agreement, and I think we can do it.”
He also said he was looking forward to leaving for a planned trip to Japan for the G-7 summit later this week.
