Biden, McCarthy Agree To Engage in Debt Ceiling Talks

President Biden Calls Speaker McCarthy To Set Up Negotiations

(LibertySociety.com) – After multiple refusals to negotiate with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the debt ceiling, President Biden called him on Monday, May 1st, 2023, to set up a meeting. Shortly beforehand, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent a letter to Congress, notifying them that the debt ceiling could be reached by June 1st, 2023, but warned that it could happen sooner. She also fired off a list of reasons why it would be unwise to put negotiations off any longer. This comes after several Democrats in the House of Representatives publicly urged President Biden to head to the negotiating table after the Republican bill passed in the House on April 26th, 2023.

Although President Biden has vowed to veto the GOP-led bill, three Democrat House members penned a letter to the president on the day the bill passed, expressing their concerns about the inability to work in a bipartisan way, stating that it “rattles markets, damages our economy, and hurts the American people.” Representative Jared Golden, D-NE, told CNN that President Biden should sit down and have a conversation with Republicans, as he has “been asking them [Republicans] to pass something,” while also expressing his frustration to Axios about the back-and-forth political games between the White House and Speaker McCarthy.

Representative Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., also called on President Biden to negotiate with Speaker McCarthy during an interview on CNN for refusing to meet with him. Other Democrats were also privately urging a meeting between the two, voicing their concerns about limited time to come to an agreement. Many have criticized the contents of the bill that Republicans passed, but now that a meeting is scheduled, President Biden and lawmakers could make compromises and tweaks to the bill that could be supported by both parties. Increasing the debt ceiling is the one bipartisan consensus that has been adopted thus far.

Biden, McCarthy, and multiple other Congressional leaders have agreed to meet on May 9.

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