Republicans claim progress has been made in talks with White House on debt ceiling

The White House and congressional Republicans were racing to seal a deal on Saturday to prevent a US debt default, as high-stakes talks over a bipartisan fiscal deal dragged on into the weekend.

After late Friday night ended without an agreement, negotiators for US President Joe Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made another attempt on Saturday to resolve their final differences.

“We’ve made progress, we did a job well done this morning, and now we’re back at it. There’s some things we still have to get done,” McCarthy told reporters. “We’ve got to make sure we get the American people Find a right compromise for.”

He agreed that the deal with Biden would involve tough compromises.

“Not everyone is going to like what their end of the agreement is. , , On both sides,” he said. “Is it everything I wanted? No, it has to pass the Senate and be signed by the President. But I firmly believe that if people sit back and look at it, from all over America, they’ll say: ‘You know what? What? This is a better product.

Biden expressed optimism about the talks Friday evening before leaving for Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, where he is following the final stages of the talks.

While the two sides are coalescing around a deal that would raise the debt ceiling for two years and limit government spending over the same period, a person familiar with the talks said Republicans have also sought to add new work requirements to anti-poverty programs. has demanded.

The White House and Congress have until June 5 to legislate to raise the country’s $31.4 trillion debt limit or America will run out of money to pay all its bills, according to the latest estimate from US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Gone, which was released on Friday.

If no deal is reached, the US would face a damaging default on its government debt that could roil global financial markets, trigger a sharp economic downturn and damage America’s creditworthiness.

House Republicans have vowed to give their lawmakers at least 72 hours to consider the debt ceiling legislation before a vote, after which it will head to the Senate for final passage in Congress.

Both Republican and Democratic leaders would need to limit the number of defections within their ranks to approve any deal, with hardliners on both sides likely to reject the looming compromise.

But many lawmakers and the White House are likely to see the agreement as necessary to avoid a much wider and self-inflicted economic and financial recession with less than 18 months to go before the next presidential election.

White House budget director Shalanda Young and Steve Ricchetti, a senior Biden aide, are leading the talks on behalf of the president, while House Financial Services Committee chairman Patrick McHenry and Louisiana MP Garrett Graves have been doing the same for McCarthy. .

The speaker was surrounded by McCarthy and Graves at the US Capitol on Saturday, although he left briefly to buy Chipotle Mexican take-out for lunch.