By Nikki Slusher
President Biden met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Monday at the White House continuing their efforts to come to an agreement on the debt limit. While a deal wasn’t struck during Monday’s negotiations, both expressed optimism on reaching one and avoiding the nation’s debt from unprecedentedly defaulting.
The clock is ticking away to the June 1st deadline. Speaker McCarthy spoke to reporters after the meeting: “I believe we can get it done.” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reiterated Monday that the country may ‘run out of money to pay its bills as early as that date,’ per NPR.
Pres. Biden called it a “productive” meeting, and that he and McCarthy “reiterated once again that default is off the table and the only way to move forward is in good faith toward a bipartisan agreement.” The president continued that although there are areas of disagreement, the pair, their lead negotiators and their staffs “will continue to discuss the path forward.” Acknowledging the GOP’s narrow majority in the House and the Dems small marginal lead in the Senate, Biden emphasized the need to agree on something that works for both parties. “We got to get something can sell both sides,” he said.
Monday’s face-to-face meeting followed a series of talks since Friday between both parties’ designated negotiators while the president was abroad attending the G-7 summit in Japan. Biden returned to D.C. early to assume negotiations with congress. Both sides have been vocal about what they want in the deal, sometimes being adamant about what they won’t budge on.
The U.S. has never — EVER— defaulted on its debt before. Former Pres. Trump had once said how the debt should never be used as collateral, even though now he’s trying to intimidate congressional Republicans to do so to hurt Biden. Most recently in 2011 there was a similar standstill; ratings agencies downgraded the nation’s credit rating from AAA to AA+. The threat of defaulting entered markets into a freefall.
Most economists agree that defaulting on the national debt would have detrimental consequences. Not only would the financial markets be severely impacted, like increasing mortgage rates and interest rates on credit cards, but government employees and Social Security recipients would go unpaid.
While on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, Secretary Yellen declined to specifically address which bills would go unpaid. “If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, there will be hard choices to make about what bills go unpaid,” she said.
Let’s just hope Washington gets itself together before the whole country suffers. As for anyone who would even consider voting for Trump again, he would literally destroy the American economy because he lost the 2020 election. Get better idols.
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