A date ceiling meeting scheduled for Friday between President Joe Biden and top Congressional leaders has been postponed until early next week, a source told CNBC.
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Biden is lined up to sit with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies, DN.Y Was.
The leaders left their meeting Tuesday with little progress to show, but a commitment to continue meeting daily for staff members to try to reach a compromise.
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McCarthy told reporters that he saw “no new movement” on the status of debt ceiling negotiations during the meeting.
“Everybody in this meeting reiterated their position,” McCarthy said outside the White House before the meeting.
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According to Democratic leaders, at the behest of Biden, every leader except McCarthy agreed to remove the threat of default. After this, speaking to reporters, Biden said that three of the four leaders were sensible during the discussion.
Biden said, “The tenor of the meeting with three of the four participants was very measured and low-key. Sometimes there was a little bit of loudness that was maybe a little over the top of the speaker.”
a source familiar with the meeting told NBC News That delay is a positive development.
“The meetings are progressing. Staff meetings are on and this was not the right time to bring it back to the principals,” the source said.
Raising the debt ceiling is necessary for the government to cover spending commitments already approved by Congress and the President and to prevent default. Doing so does not authorize the new expense. But House Republicans have said they will not lift the limit if Biden and lawmakers do not agree to cut spending in the future.
The White House has insisted it is open to discussing spending cuts, but it will not negotiate with Republicans on the debt ceiling. The Biden administration has said the GOP has a constitutional responsibility to raise the borrowing limit.
The Treasury Department has taken extraordinary steps to keep paying the government’s bills, and hopes to be able to avoid a first-time default until at least the beginning of June. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Monday that failing to raise the debt ceiling would lead to an “economic catastrophe.”
Defaulting on sovereign debt would wreak havoc on the economy and markets around the world. A default on Treasury bonds could put the US economy in jeopardy. The last time Congressional Republicans threatened default in Standard & Poor’s was in 2011. US credit rating downgraded First time from AAA to AA+.
If the US were to default, GDP would fall by 4% and more than 7 million workers would lose their jobs, Moody’s Analytics recently estimated, According to statistics, even a brief lapse will result in loss of 20 lakh jobs.
– CNBC’s Kayla Swapp
