An optimistic President Joe Biden declared Wednesday that he is confident the U.S. will avoid an unprecedented and potentially catastrophic debt default, saying talks with congressional Republicans have been productive as he prepared to leave for a global summit in Japan.
Biden’s upbeat remarks came as a select group of negotiators began meeting to try and hammer out the final contours of a budget spending agreement to unlock a path forward for raising the debt limit by June 1. That is when the Treasury Department says the U.S. could begin defaulting on its obligations and trigger financial chaos.
“I’m confident that we’ll get the agreement on the budget and America will not default,” the president said from the Roosevelt Room of the White House. He said a meeting late Tuesday with Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other congressional leaders was “productive” and that “everyone came to the meeting, I think, in good faith.”
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