It’s unclear how much he wants to trim and whether fellow Republicans would support any deal after a testy start to the new Congress that required 15 rounds of voting to elect McCarthy as speaker.Īsked twice on Wednesday if there was evidence that House Republicans can ensure that the government would avert a default, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it’s their “constitutional responsibility” to protect the full faith and credit of the United States. McCarthy is calling for negotiations that he believes will lead to spending cuts. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)īut this particular moment seems more fraught than past brushes with the debt limit because of the broad differences between Biden and new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who presides over a restive Republican caucus.īiden insists on a “clean” increase to the debt limit so that existing financial commitments can be sustained and is refusing to even start talks with Republicans. 19, and will then resort to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default. is projected to reach its debt limit on Jan. 13, 2023, notifying Congress that the U.S. The letter from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Calif., photographed Friday, Jan. Even many worried analysts assume there will be a deal. Markets so far remain relatively calm, given that the government can temporarily rely on accounting tweaks to stay open and any threats to the economy would be several months away. “I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote in the letter.

An artificially imposed cap, the debt ceiling has been increased roughly 80 times since the 1960s. The Treasury Department said in a letter to congressional leaders it has started taking “extraordinary measures” as the government has run up against its legal borrowing capacity of $31.381 trillion. can sidestep a potential economic crisis. government default began Thursday with Treasury implementing accounting measures as a stopgap, while frictions between President Joe Biden and House Republicans raise alarms about whether the U.S. WASHINGTON - The countdown toward a possible U.S.

Republicans are in full panic mode