The White House confirmed on Friday (May 19) that debt limit talks between United States President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and House Republicans had come to a halt. The pause raised concerns a bit over a US default. “We’ve got to pause,” Republican leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters in Congress, adding, “We can’t be spending any more money next year.”
But NBC News in its latest report mentioned that the Republicans returned to the debt ceiling negotiating table Friday night. Later, a White House official confirmed to the news outlet that the two parties had reopened talks.
McCarthy told Fox Business Friday night: “We will be back in the room tonight.”
The deadline to avoid a potentially disastrous default looms as the Biden administration hopes to reach an agreement with Republicans led by McCarthy.
The nation stands on the verge of default if the government does not agree to raise the borrowing limit from its current 31.4 trillion dollars in order to maintain paying the nation’s debts.
But both parties have been dilly-dallying for too long as reaching a common ground looks uncertain. Republicans say Biden must sign up to spending cuts in exchange for their support to raise the debt ceiling, ignoring repeated Democratic calls for a “clean” increase of the borrowing limit with no strings attached.
A White House official told reporters that a deal could be reached, but negotiations must be conducted in good faith.
As quoted by the news agency Reuters, the official said, “There are real differences between the parties on budget issues and talks will be difficult.”
The official added that the president’s team is working hard towards a reasonable bipartisan solution that can pass the House and the Senate.
(With inputs from agencies)
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