U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) talks to reporters after he met with U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the federal debt limit and spending, at the White House in Washington, February 1, 2023.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he had a “very good discussion” with President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday about the looming debt ceiling and federal spending.
“We have different perspectives. But we both laid out some of our vision of where we’d want to get to. And I believe, after laying them both out, I can see where we can find common ground,” McCarthy told reporters at the White House following the meeting.
The Democratic president and the California Republican talked for over an hour, and while there were “no agreements” and “no promises,” McCarthy said they would continue their conversation. The White House readout of the meeting reflected McCarthy’s sentiments, stating the two had a “frank and straightforward dialogue” as part of an ongoing conversation.
The Biden administration repeated a familiar phrase that the president is “eager to continue working across the aisle in good faith,” but stressed that he does not intend to negotiate on lifting the debt ceiling.
“It is their shared duty not to allow an unprecedented and economically catastrophic default,” the White House statement read. “The United States Constitution is explicit about this obligation, and the American people expect Congress to meet it in the same way all of his predecessors have. It is not negotiable or conditional.”
The House speaker later said the meeting had gone better than he expected. McCarthy added that he believes investors should feel better about the prospect of an agreement to avoid a first-ever default on U.S. debt.
“I would feel better, if I was the markets, based upon the meeting I had today,” he said, according to Punchbowl News.
The Treasury Department has launched a series of extraordinary steps to keep paying the…
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