Joe Biden on Friday accused Republicans of holding the US economy “hostage” by conditioning his vote on raising the debt ceiling on “draconian” budget cuts.
The US president said that he would ask again next Tuesday, during a meeting with the Republican leaders of Congress, that the latter do “what (previous) legislatures have always done: raise the debt ceiling, and avoid default.” of the country
He stressed again that this famous “ceiling”, which limits the total amount of public debt, had been raised three times during the term of Donald Trump.
Joe Biden, drawing on the strong jobs numbers released on Friday, criticizes the opposition for wanting to “undo all this progress by letting us default” on debt.
A formality that is no longer
While the Republican opposition, which has a majority in the House of Representatives and a blocking minority in the Senate, wants to link a debt deal to spending cuts, the US president said “the two things were not related.”
“We are ready for a debate” on budget and spending issues, said the 80-year-old Democrat, who refuses to negotiate on the debt.
The US Congress must vote regularly, it is a peculiarity of the United States, to increase the maximum amount of public debt that the world’s largest economy is allowed to accumulate.
A long formality, this vote is this time the occasion for a confrontation, whose main protagonist, in addition to Joe Biden, is the Republican head of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy.
In fact, the federal government hit this famous ceiling of $31 trillion in mid-January, but has so far managed this situation with accounting maneuvers.
However, the US Treasury has warned that, short of a vote in Congress, the government could be forced as of June 1 to make drastic cuts in certain social spending.
Before possibly falling into a completely unprecedented sovereign default situation that would see the US unable to meet certain financial deadlines, with unpredictable but potentially dramatic consequences for jobs and growth.
Source: BFM TV
