America's Talking - No Progress on Debt Ceiling as Deadline Approaches

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Casey Harper, who usually joins me, has the day off. So, joining me today is Brett Rowland, Center Square investigative reporter. We are recording this on Friday, May 12th. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says that the U.S. faces defaulting on its debt by June 1st if Congress does not agree to raise the debt ceiling limit. Tell me there's been some progress on the stalemate between Republicans and Democrats in Congress and, of course, Democratic President Joe Biden. Well, there has been progress, but the measure has a really low bar here. So the two sides met on Tuesday. They were supposed to meet again today, but it looks like that meeting has been scrapped between the four

Starting point is 00:00:53 legislative leaders and the president. The staff members for those folks will continue to talk. And apparently they have continued to talk, which means that maybe something is going forward, but there really hasn't been much movement as far as we can tell. So after Tuesday's meeting, both sides said nothing, no progress. They essentially blamed each other for the problems. They accused each other of holding the economy hostage. And notably afterwards, US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy shot down the idea of a short-term extension and basically put the ball in Chuck Schumer's court and said, you know, we've passed a bill, you need to do something. As Schumer's saying, we need something with bipartisan support, but both sides are really sticking

Starting point is 00:01:38 to their guns here. And let's talk about that legislation that Republicans who control the House passed in the house. Essentially, a bill that passed ties an increase in the debt limit. Congress and the president are constitutionally bound to whatever the debt ceiling limit that is in place and we're approaching that ceiling. So the Republicans in the House passed legislation that would tie raising that debt ceiling to significant spending cuts. Republicans say we have to rein in federal spending. The U.S. national debt is approaching $32 trillion. We'll reach that at some point this summer probably. That means the federal budget, paying down interest on that federal debt gets

Starting point is 00:02:22 higher and higher every year. So the percentage of the federal budget that goes towards paying down debt and not providing services gets higher and higher every single year. But Democrats and President Biden are rejecting the spending cuts being tied to raising the debt ceiling? Yes. So you're right. The Republicans passed a bill that's basically said, we need $5 trillion in cuts and we'll up the debt limit by $1.5 trillion. So Democrats have said, no, we're not going to do that. and they're saying that, you know, Republicans must agree to raise the debt limit without any concessions or without any spending cuts. So now publicly, neither side has changed their position, but I guess we'll see how that changes in the future. But I thought it was interesting what you said about, you know, the more and more interest money or more and more money going to the federal government to fund debt and interest payments on that debt.

Starting point is 00:03:17 And the government of car onability office this week said essentially that date could be 20. that we would, that 100% of funding would equal 100% of debt service. I don't want to speak for you, Brett, but by 2078, I'll be long gone. And it won't be my problem anymore. But it will be my children's problem. It will be my grandchildren's problems. So doesn't it make sense to take care of this now? Yes, but the sides seem so far apart.

Starting point is 00:03:44 I mean, 2078 certainly is a long way away. And there's certain assumptions built into those figures and those projections. Action now would be great, but boy, the sides really don't seem like they're very close. So I don't see a path forward here yet. I'm sure that there's some alternatives, but we'll have to see sort of what happens in the coming weeks. As always, Brett, I appreciate your insight into this very important story to American taxpayers. But we are out of time. Listeners can keep up with this story and all the important stories that we cover at the center,

Starting point is 00:04:18 square.com. or Brett Rowland. I'm Dan McAelan. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe.

America's Talking - No Progress on Debt Ceiling as Deadline Approaches

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