President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) will meet again Monday afternoon to try to find a deal to avoid a U.S. default after their aides meet again later today to try and hammer out remaining issues, the White House said.
Lawmakers remain far apart on an agreement to raise the federal borrowing limit just days ahead of an estimated deadline after which the U.S. runs out of options to keep payments flowing.
“There’s no agreement. We’re still apart,” McCarthy told reporters Sunday, saying a phone call with Biden was productive.
“I’ve done my part,” Biden said at a press conference earlier Sunday, before flying back to Washington, D.C., after meeting with the Group of Seven world leaders in Japan.
Biden called on Republicans to move from their “extreme positions,” saying what they have proposed is “unacceptable.”
The negotiations have endured months of fits and starts. The U.S. officially reached its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in January, and has been maneuvering to continue paying its obligations since then. Suspending or raising the debt ceiling, which Congress has voted to do 78 times since 1960, wouldn’t authorize new spending, but would pay debts that have already been approved and spent.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told NBC’s Meet the Press that the U.S. faces “hard choices” if an agreement isn’t reached, reaffirming her earlier estimate that June 1 is that X-date deadline.
“I will continue to update Congress, but I certainly haven’t changed my assessment,” Yellen said. Asked if the deadline could be pushed back to June 15, when more tax revenue is expected, Yellen said “my assessment is that the odds of reaching June 15th, while being able to pay all of our bills, is quite low.”
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) told ABC’s This Week that Democrats should move to other options, including a so-called discharge position in the House, which is a way to bypass Republicans. “I think the markets are going to get shaky,” he said. “It seems to me we’re going to have to move in that direction pretty soon.”
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, and other Democrats last week collected signatures for a discharge petition, trying to muster the 218 needed to force a vote on raising the debt ceiling.
Other lawmakers have floated the possibility of invoking the 14th Amendment, something Biden said Sunday he believes he has the authority to do. It would allow him to address the debt ceiling on his own, though he said the potential for legal challenges makes such a move unresolved.
Biden had told reporters before leaving for the G7 summit on Wednesday that he was confident the team of aides negotiating the deal with Congress would reach an agreement, but he still cut short his Asia trip to resume negotiations in person.
McCarthy had also expressed a tone of optimism on Thursday. “I see the path that we can come to an agreement, and I think we have a structure now,” he told reporters at the Capitol.
Along with Biden and McCarthy, the other top lawmakers steering the negotiations included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.). Since a meeting of the leaders at the White House Tuesday, the deal talks have been driven by aides to Biden and McCarthy.
Write to Janet H. Cho at janet.cho@dowjones.com
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