The White House announced, after several weeks of political confrontation, that Joe Biden on Saturday passed a law eliminating the risk of default by the United States.
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This week the US Congress adopted this text that allows for the suspension of the US public debt ceiling until January 2025 and which also sets certain budget targets.
The president thanked House officials, including Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, for their “cooperation” on this file, according to a White House statement on Saturday.
Without this bill, which was approved Thursday in the Senate by a Democratic majority and Wednesday by the House of Representatives by a Republican majority, the country risks default starting Monday, June 5.
“Nothing could be more irresponsible, nothing would be more catastrophic,” the US president said Friday in a solemn address from his Oval Office.
Reaching consensus across partisan divides is difficult. Loneliness is hard. But we must never stop trying,” he said, following the message of reconciliation that marked the beginning of his term, which now marks his 2024 campaign.
joint victory
Because the subject of this financial confrontation was also very political.
As a candidate for re-election, Joe Biden knows his first hurdle is his age, 80.
He undoubtedly hopes that these soap operas about debt, which have kept the world of American politics and media afloat, will enhance the image of a competent and reasonable leader.
And so Joe Biden celebrated on Friday by “tributing” his most prominent opponent in this debt file, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy.
For the latter, it was about consolidating his power over a diverse parliamentary group, between moderate conservatives and vocal supporters of former President Donald Trump.
The Republican billionaire, who is a presidential candidate for 2024, also called for maintaining a hard line in negotiations with the White House.
In the end, each side claims victory in one form or another. Republicans are cheering about freezing some spending. Democrats congratulate themselves on keeping social benefits and major investments.
life on credit
This tough fight over public finances, which was already happening when Barack Obama was president, likely won’t have much impact on the 2024 election.
But it left some ramifications: And so Fitch Ratings kept the US’s precious AAA rating on Friday in check, deploring “political polarization” and noting the “continuous deterioration in governance over the past 15 years.”
Like almost all advanced economies, the United States lives on credit – and it also has the heaviest debt in the world, in absolute terms.
But no other industrialized country faces such a rigid debt ceiling at regular intervals that Congress must raise.
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