Politics

Biden praises US debt agreement, says he will ratify it Saturday

Washington, Jun 2 (EFE).- United States President Joe Biden celebrated Friday the agreement reached with Republicans to raise the debt ceiling and announced he would ratify it Saturday, after the two houses of government gave the go-ahead during this past week.

“This is vital. It is essential to the progress we have made in recent years,” the president said during a speech broadcast from the White House.

With Biden’s ratification, the country will avoid the suspension of payments that would have occurred as soon as Monday if congress had not reached an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, which sets the limit on the money the US can borrow and can only be raised or suspended by legislative action.

Despite the fact that the measure contemplates some caps on public spending in areas such as health, education, justice or environmental protection, Biden said the suspension of payments “would have been catastrophic” and would have sent the country into “a recession.”

The president celebrated having reached a bipartisan agreement when many in Washington doubted and said was possible due to the division between the blocks, an

“No one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed,” the Democrat said.

The agreement to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for some ceilings on public spending was reached over the weekend, in a race against time between the White House and the Republicans in the Lower House, led by Kevin McCarthy.

Despite the fact that it was finally able to be quickly approved in both chambers, some Republican senators threatened Thursday to delay the process, considering that the agreement did not do enough to ensure a sufficient budget for defense.

Finally, the leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, promised to allow the Defense budget to be increased more than what is currently f cin the agreement itself in exchange for proceeding with the vote.done

The measure suspends the debt ceiling for the next two years, until after the presidential elections in November 2024. Specifically, it suspends the current debt limit of 31.4 trillion dollars until January 1, 2025. EFE

jdg/lds

Related Articles

Back to top button