Deal on raising US debt ceiling

Washington: President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached an ‘agreement in principle’ to raise the nation’s legal debt ceiling late Saturday as they raced to strike a deal to limit federal spending and avert a potentially disastrous US default. However, the agreement risks angering both Democratic and Republican sides with the concessions made to reach it. Negotiators agreed to some Republican demands for increased work requirements for recipients of food stamps that had sparked an uproar from House Democrats as a nonstarter. Support from both parties will be needed to win congressional approval next week before a June 5 deadline.

The Democratic president and Republican speaker reached the agreement after the two spoke earlier Saturday evening by phone, said McCarthy. The country and the world have been watching and waiting for a resolution to a political standoff that threatened the US and global economies.

“The agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want,” Biden said in a statement late Saturday night. “That’s the responsibility of governing,” he said. Biden called the agreement “good news for the American people, because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost.”

McCarthy in brief remarks at the Capitol, said that “we still have a lot of work to do.” But the Republican speaker said: “I believe this is an agreement in principle that’s worthy of the American people.”