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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will deliver a speech Monday on the debt ceiling. His speech comes a day before President Joe Biden is due to deliver the annual State of the Union address.
Biden and McCarthy are engaged in the early stages of what is expected to be a months-long negotiation over a vote on the debt ceiling.
The country hit its statutory limit last month, forcing Treasury Secretary Janey Yellen to take several temporary measures to prevent the government from defaulting.
If Congress does not pass a bill to raise or suspend the national debt ceiling by early June, it could wreak economic havoc around the world.
But House Republicans say they won’t vote to raise the limit without massive spending cuts in return.
“I think you have to lift the debt ceiling, but you don’t do it without changing your behavior. So it has to be both,” McCarthy said after his first meeting with Biden last week.
However, the White House has so far refused to “negotiate” an increase in the debt ceiling. Instead, Biden called on Congress to pass a so-called “clean” bill, that is, without any legislative requirements.
McCarthy recently told reporters that “it’s never going to happen.”
