Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told lawmakers last week that officials will reprioritize funds to preserve the nation’s credit — largely through technical moves that will buy lawmakers time to reach an agreement on how much the government is allowed to borrow.
Newly emboldened House Republicans are trying to leverage the standoff to extract major spending cuts — including to such safety nets as Social Security and Medicare — insisting that previous Congresses and administrations have spent too much on social programs. The White House has said it will not negotiate on the debt ceiling.“I don’t see why you would continue the past behavior,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters Tuesday.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the issue should not be used as a “political football.” “In the past there has been bipartisan cooperation to address the debt ceiling, and that’s how it should be.” Yellen has said a default could cause “irreparable harm to the U.S. economy.” Federally backed debt is the backbone of domestic and global markets. A failure to make good on U.S. borrowing could set off panic on Wall Street and spark millions of job losses.
Treasury’s moves should give lawmakers until at least June to pass legislation that raises the amount the country can borrow, or suspends that limit, which is currently capped at $31.4 trillion.The United States has never defaulted on its debt. But it has repeatedly come close, particularly in 2011, amid the rise of the conservative tea party movement in the House.
republicanssuck
Tim Geitner 2.0!
🤡
Stop borrowing. It’s simple. But they are like drug addicts; they want to keep borrowing until our nation is dead.
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