iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
In the ongoing debt ceiling crisis, President Joe Biden said on Sunday that the only way forward for the US is a Bipartisan Budget Agreement and urged the Congress to pass the deal.
“We’ve reached a bipartisan budget agreement that we’re ready to move to the full Congress and I think it’s a really important step forward,” Biden said while delivering remarks on the Bipartisan Budget Agreement on Sunday evening.
Republicans control the House 222-213 while Democrats have a 51-49 advantage in the Senate.
READ: The Fiscal Responsibility Act
Biden said: “The Speaker and I made clear from the start that the only way forward was a bipartisan agreement, that agreement now goes to the United States House and to the Senate.”
He added: “I strongly urge both chambers to pass that agreement. Let’s keep moving forward on meeting our obligations and building the strongest economy in the history of the world.”
Biden said the agreement represents compromise, that no one got everything they want, “but that’s the responsibility of governing”.
“I believe you’ll see for the American people the agreement prevents the worst possible crisis on default for the first time in our nation’s history,” he said.
He added: “It also protects key priorities and accomplishments and values that Congressional Democrats and I have fought along for long and hard for investing in America’s agenda.”
The Washington Post reported that President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have reached an “agreement in principle” to raise the debt ceiling and cap federal spending.
The agreement comes as an important step toward preventing a government default that could be nine days away.
According to The Washington Post, the new blueprint lifts the legal maximum that the nation may borrow to pay its bills until 2025. It also essentially freezes domestic spending and institutes new work requirements on some Americans who nutrition assistance from the federal government, according to a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to describe the sensitive talks.
Some contours of the emerging deal reflect Republicans’ initial demands after party lawmakers assumed control of the House in January and plotted a strategy to leverage the debt ceiling to achieve their policy agenda, ignoring repeated warnings that their brinkmanship could plunge the country into a recession.
Before Biden and McCarthy unveiled their plan, some Democrats and Republicans had already started to condemn its size and scope, underscoring the difficult task the two leaders faced to muscle legislation through the pitfall-prone, narrowly divided House and Senate with roughly a week to spare.
Earlier on Sunday, Biden said a bipartisan deal to raise the US debt ceiling and avert the “worst possible crisis” is ready to move to the full Congress.
“I just spoke with Speaker McCarthy, and we’ve reached a bipartisan budget agreement that we’re ready to move to the full Congress… I think it’s a really important step and it takes the threat of catastrophic default off the table; it protects our hard-earned and historic economic recovery,” Biden said at a brief appearance before reporters on Sunday evening.
“That agreement now goes to the United States House and to the Senate. And I strongly urge both chambers to pass that agreement,” he added.
“Let’s keep moving forward on meeting our obligations and building the strongest economy in the history of the world,” the President asserted.
The proposed deal is the result of weeks of bitter negotiations between Democrats and Republicans.
Earlier, the Treasury had warned the US will run out of money on June 5 without a deal.
The US must borrow money to fund the government because it spends more than it raises in taxes.
Republicans have been seeking spending cuts in areas such as education and other social programmes in exchange for raising the $31.4tn debt limit.
The proposed deal has now been published on the House website.
It envisages that non-defence government spending would be kept largely flat for two years and then rise by 1 per cent in 2025.
There would be no major changes to Medicaid health insurance, and the proposed agreement fully funds medical care for veterans.
Energy permitting laws are to be streamlined to speed up approval time for new projects – a reform Republicans have been pushing for.
Covid relief funds that have not been spent will be clawed back in the agreement, another demand made by the Republicans.
Certain age changes are proposed for a government programme that provides food-purchasing assistance for people on low or no incomes, the British news broadcaster reported.
Earlier, McCarthy on Saturday referred to “historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce”.
