By Richard Cowan, Andy Sullivan and Jarrett Renshaw
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats in the White House and Republicans in Congress put the upper hand on Friday on a deal that will raise the United States debt ceiling to $31.4 trillion over two years. while in all areas except military and military spending on veterans, according to a US official.
The president’s negotiators, Democrat Joe Biden, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican, appeared close to an understanding Thursday, as the two sides reached an agreement on key issues including caps and funding from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the military.
However, the work is required to help recipients of the federal maintenance deal, the official said.
The deal considered increasing funding for military and veterans discretionary spending, while basically not defending discretionary holdings at the current level for years, said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about internal discussions.
The White House is considering scaling back its plan to increase IRS funding to hire more auditors and focus on wealthy Americans, the official said.
Defense and veterans affairs spending in Biden’s budget was put on the line earlier this year, a second US official said.
The agreement would leave many details to be worked out in the coming weeks and months.
Both will have to convince a sufficient number of parties in Congress with equal strength between the two formations, to vote in favor of the consensus outcome, which is not easy, since the Republicans say the extreme right wing. no matter can be cut without an attack and gradually the Democrats remain, resisting the new requirements in the anti-poverty programs.
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“The only way forward is with bipartisan agreement. And I believe we will reach an agreement that will allow us to move forward and that will protect working Americans in this country,” Biden said Thursday.
One of the Republican negotiators, Congressman Patrick McHenry, said that both parties have expressed their concerns and understand them very well.
“Why are we still here at the last minute discussing serious matters with consequences,” he told reporters late Thursday.
One thing that added to the complexity is that it is not clear how much time the meeting should take. The Treasury Department has warned that it may not be able to service all of its obligations as soon as June 1, but on Thursday it said it would sell $119 billion of debt that day, warning some market observers that it would not. immovable boundary
Most of the congressmen left Washington for the Memorial Day holiday, but their leaders warned that the deal should be prepared for another vote.
The rapidly growing health care and retirement programs may not be affected, although the US debt level is expected to rise in the coming years.
Republicans rejected Biden’s proposal to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, while Biden resisted Republican proposals to tighten work requirements in some anti-poverty programs and relax rules on drilling and oil gas.
Republican spokesman and congressman Garret Graves said late Thursday that the White House “refuses to act on the “job requirements”, calling it “insanity”. He said that the differences in the funding of Social Security and Medicare – Republicans proposing to strengthen the needs of work to obtain health – remain a problem between the two sides.
House leaders said Congress will have three days to deliberate on the deal before a vote and anyone in the Senate has the power to block action for days. At least one of them, Republican Mike Lee, has threatened to do so.
The stalemate has alienated investors, leading to an $80 million increase in the country’s borrowing costs, according to Under Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo.
A number of credit rating agencies have stated that they are considering a downgrade in the United States, which will further increase borrowing costs.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Jarrett Renshaw, Nandita Bose, David Morgan, Moira Warburton, and Gram Slattery; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing in Spanish by Benjamín Mejías Valentia)
