Debt ceiling | Biden accuses Republicans of holding the economy ‘hostage’

(Washington) Joe Biden on Friday accused the Republicans of taking the American economy “hostage”, by conditioning their vote on raising the debt ceiling on “draconian” budget cuts.

The American president said that he would ask again next Tuesday, at a meeting with the Republican leaders in Congress, that they do “what the [précédentes] legislatures: raise the debt ceiling, and avoid default” of the country.

He stressed again that this famous “ceiling”, which limits the total amount of public debt, had been raised three times during Donald Trump’s mandate.

Joe Biden, relying on robust employment figures released on Friday, criticizes the opposition for wanting to “undo all this progress by letting us default” on the debt.

While the Republican opposition – majority in the House of Representatives and which has a blocking minority in the Senate – wants to link a debt agreement to spending cuts, the American president considered that “the two things were not unrelated”.

“We are ready for a debate” on budget issues and spending, said the 80-year-old Democrat, who refuses to negotiate on the debt.

The American Congress must regularly, it is a particularity of the United States, vote to raise the maximum amount of public debt that the world’s largest economy is authorized to accumulate.

Long a formality, this vote is this time the occasion for a showdown, the main protagonist of which, in addition to Joe Biden, is the Republican boss of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy.

The federal government actually hit that famous $31 trillion cap in mid-January, but has so far managed it through bookkeeping maneuvers.

The US Treasury has warned, however, that without a vote from Congress, the government could be forced as early as 1^er June to make drastic cuts in certain social expenditures.

Before possibly falling into a situation of sovereign default, completely unprecedented, which would see America unable to honor certain financial deadlines, with unpredictable but potentially dramatic consequences on employment and growth.