Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick suggested Sunday that there is some flexibility June 1 deadline To address lawmakers Debt ceiling — Although his Democratic colleague, Rep. Josh Gottheimer said that while this is not a hard deadline, “we cannot continue to play chicken – with the full faith and credit of the United States.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that he and President Joe Biden had a “productive” call and will meet at the White House on Monday. The pair’s call came after Mr Biden said at the G-7 summit that Republican leaders had to “remove their extreme positions” and labeled previous proposals as “unacceptable” to achieve bipartisan consensus.
Last week tense talks to raise and avoid the country’s borrowing limit stalled Federal debt defaults Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the US will likely not be able to pay its bills after June 1.
While Fitzpatrick and Gottheimer agreed during a joint interview on “Face the Nation” Sunday that talks should continue with a target date of June 1 in mind, the Pennsylvania congressman also said there is likely “a little wiggle room” in the timeline. To reach a final agreement.
“We should estimate the date as June 1, but I think the math tells us there’s a little bit of wiggle room,” Fitzpatrick said. Still, he points out that the open deadline in and of itself isn’t the only reason for Congress’ swift action The 2011 debt ceiling crisis and its impact on the US economy.
“If you go back to 2011, about nine days before X date when we got our credit rating downgraded and the markets spiraled as a result,” Fitzpatrick said. “So, it’s not just the X date. It’s the downgrade risk that we have to worry about, which is why it’s incredibly time sensitive. There’s no question about that. The conversations can’t come soon enough.”
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Fitzpatrick and Gottheimer are co-chairs of the House Resolutions Caucus, which in April introduced a proposed framework for the government to manage the nation’s fiscal deficit without defaulting on the debt. Both leaders said on “Face the Nation” that they believe ongoing and increasingly tense talks between White House representatives and congressional Republicans will end on common ground.
“I believe the president and the speaker legitimately respect each other,” Fitzpatrick said “I believe they legitimately want to come to a conclusion here. And I think it’s important that they physically be in the same room together to make that happen.”
“It’s going to take time. We knew it was going to take time,” Gottheimer added. “But you hear both the speaker and the president are still optimistic that they’re going to figure it out. I believe they will.”
Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Biden sharply criticized the latest proposal to address congressional Republicans Debt ceiling.
Speaking at a news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, where he attended this year’s G-7 summit, Mr. Biden acknowledged a deadline approaching Congress and the White House to reach a deal. Echoing the debate that sparked the debt ceiling crisis in 2011, Republicans’ push for limited government spending in response to the deficit led to an apparent stalemate last week.
“I’ve done my part,” Mr. Biden said Sunday. “We are proposing more than a trillion dollars in spending cuts on top of the nearly $3 trillion deficit reduction I previously proposed through a combination of spending cuts and new revenue.”
“Now is the time for the other side to move their extreme positions because much of what they have already proposed is, frankly, unacceptable,” the president continued. “And so let me be clear, I’m not going to agree to a deal that protects, for example, a $30 billion tax break for the oil industry, which made $200 billion last year.”
Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, posted a tweet as Biden made his latest comments. Jeffries last week slammed congressional Republicans for failing to engage in scheduled talks with the Biden administration despite a deadline to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and the threat of default.
“House Republicans walked away from a meeting with the Biden administration,” Jeffries wrote. “They came back hours later with a ransom note that is nothing more than a biased right-wing wish list. MAGA extremists are recklessly driving the nation into a dangerous default. Get serious.”
House Republicans walked away from a meeting with the Biden administration.
They returned a few hours later with a ransom note that was nothing more than a biased right-wing wish list.
MAGA extremists are recklessly driving the nation into a dangerous default.
be serious
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) May 21, 2023