Hours after announcing the preliminary agreement to raise the debt ceiling in the United States and avoid suspension of paymentsPresident Joe Biden and the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, intensified their efforts this Sunday to obtain the support of legislators.
In a brief message to the press upon his arrival this Sunday at the White House, Biden said he is confident the deal will arrive on his desk after approval by the House of Representatives and the Senate. He stated that there are “no” sticking points.
“I’m about to call McCarthy to make sure all dots are on the i’s. I think we’re in good shape,” Biden said.
In the last few hours, the Republican and Democratic legislators who have participated in the negotiations have been drafting the bill and throughout today it will be presented by McCarthy and Biden to congressmen and senatorswhich they will have until next Wednesday to read it, before the vote.
The leader of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives held a press conference this Sunday to defend the principle of agreement, despite criticism from some legislators from the most conservative wing of his party.
“This is a good, solid bill that a majority of Republicans will support.McCarthy guaranteed. The pact between the government and the opposition, she added, will be “transformative” by limiting the growth of public spending and introducing new requirements to access social assistance.
The principle of agreement announced this Saturday has quickly met with criticism from the most radical factions of the Republican Partywho see it as insufficient and consider that there are excessive concessions to the positions of the Democrats.
Republican congressmen like Dan Bishop and Chip Roy or senators like Rand Paul, among others, charged hard against McCarthy today, assuring that the spending “cuts” you are talking about are not real and that they do nothing more than maintain the status quo.
“This deal is crazy. A $4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling with virtually no cuts is not what we agreed to. I am not voting to ruin our country,” Conservative Congressman Ralph Norman tweeted.
Without even having seen the text, figures such as the extremist Lauren Boebert, part of the MAGA Republicans (the most radical legislators of the party that follows former President Donald Trump) have already announced that they will vote no. “Our voters deserve better than this, we work for them, so they can count on my no,” she said in a message on social media.
At his press conference, McCarthy downplayed conservative criticism and stressed that it was necessary for the two parties to make concessions to reach an agreement and avoid the suspension of payments by the United States.
“It does not achieve what everyone wanted, but that is a divided government,” explained the Republican leader, who reiterated that message in several television interviews this Sunday.
In the Democratic Party there is also a division of opinion. The leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, told CBS that he hopes that his party’s legislators will support the agreement, although he did not want to venture figures while waiting to see the final text.
The most progressive wing of the Democratic Party has so far refused to support Republican demands that are known to appear in the pact, such as new work requirements when accessing some welfare benefits.
One of the most critical has been Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who said Sunday on CNN that White House negotiators and Democratic leaders should worry about progressive support for the deal.
If approved, the compromise reached will raise the debt ceiling for the next two yearsthat is, until after the next presidential elections and will reduce the risk of a suspension of payments during that period.
The debt limit is the total amount of money the United States Government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations to pay Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt , tax refunds and other payments.
From time to time, the United States faces default on its national debt because, unlike other countries, the government can only issue debt up to the limit set by Congress, which has the power to raise that ceiling as it sees fit.
The country reached its legal debt limit of 31.4 trillion dollars on January 19which led the Treasury Department to resort to extraordinary measures ever since to pay the bills.
Keep reading:
– The White House and congressional Republicans reach an agreement on the debt ceiling
– What does the agreement say about the debt ceiling in the US?
– Treasury Secretary warns that the US must raise the debt ceiling before June 5
Source: La Opinion
