President Joe Biden said Wednesday he was “confident” that he and congressional leaders will come to an agreement to avoid the first ever U.S. government default.
In a press conference Wednesday, Biden said he had a “productive” meeting with congressional leaders on Tuesday.
“I’m confident that we’ll get the agreement on the budget, that America will not default,” Biden said. He added that every leader he met with “understands the consequences if we fail to pay our bills, and it would be catastrophic for the American economy and the American people if we didn’t pay our bills.”
The country could default on its debts as early as June 1 if an agreement isn’t reached, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. A U.S. default would hammer the global economy and could lead to massive layoffs. It would also lead to the government pausing benefits payments to retirees, such as Social Security, and military veterans.
Biden said Wednesday that he and speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, designated people to negotiate debt-ceiling agreements. McCarthy made similar remarks on an interview with Fox Business earlier Wednesday.
“Yesterday, the president finally admitted he would negotiate—he would assign two people from his administration to negotiate with us. We started last night,” McCarthy said. “We finally have a process, a structure, that has worked every time in the past, but now we have a short time frame to get the job done.”
Stocks were rising following the press conference Wednesday. The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
gained 426 points, or 1.3%. The
S&P 500
was rising 1.2% and the
Nasdaq Composite
rose 1.1%.
Biden will hold another press conference on Sunday after returning from the G-7 meeting in Japan. He said he was cutting his trip abroad short because of the debt-ceiling talks.
“We’re going to continue these discussions with congressional leaders in the coming days until we reach an agreement, and I’ll have more to say about that on Sunday,” Biden said.
Write to Angela Palumbo at [email protected]
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