Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, center, speaks during a hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, May 4, 2023. The hearing is titled The Default on America Act: Blackmail, Brinkmanship, and Billionaire Backroom Deals.egotiations over the debt limit appear to be in limbo ahead of next week’s meeting between the four top congressional leaders and President Joe Biden.
Thursday’s hearing marked the first in a series of meetings that Senate Democrats are holding this month to highlight the economic implications of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt limit bill, which they have derisively dubbed the “Default on America Act.
The debt limit standoff between Republicans and the White House is coming at an inopportune time, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics and one of the witnesses, who told lawmakers that there is a possibility that the Treasury Department will run out of cash to pay the government’s bills in as early as four weeks. “By my best calculation, June 8 will be the day when Treasury can’t pay its bills,” he said, adding the “best case scenario will be August 8.
But at least until May 9, when President Biden has invited McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, andto the White House to discuss the matter, the political theater is likely to continue without any substantive progress. “I think May 9 is an important deadline,” Whitehouse tells TIME.