House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a speech delivered from the New York Stock Exchange proposed a one-year debt ceiling increase tied to spending cuts, a significant move forward in debt ceiling negotiations between House Republicans and the White House.
McCarthy said that House Republicans would, "in the coming weeks," vote on a measure that would extend the debt ceiling fight into next year. In exchange, he asked for a freeze on spending at last year's levels and stricter work requirements on social programs along with a series of regulatory rollbacks. The proposal would also rescind tens of billions of dollars in unspent pandemic funding, and would expand domestic mining and fossil fuel production.
The country is expected to exceed the debt limit in July unless Congress raises it.
"Without exaggeration American debt is a ticking time bomb that will detonate unless we take serious, responsible action," McCarthy said.
While McCarthy's proposal — which was
McCarthy's delivery of the speech on Wall Street is a direct line to traders who are
"Markets are reacting to work we've done," he said. "So I shouldn't monitor you. I should monitor what we're doing."
For weeks, the White House has insisted that House Republicans come up with a proposal before President Joe Biden agrees to another meeting with McCarthy.
"This is not how the leader of the free world should act," McCarthy said on Monday. "Your partisan political games are provoking the very crisis you claim you want to avoid: greater dependency on China, increasing inflation, and threatening Medicare and Social Security."
In a statement, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said that McCarthy "failed to clearly outline what House Republicans are proposing and will vote on, even as he referenced a vague, extreme MAGA wish list that will increase costs for hard-working families, take food assistance and health care away from millions of Americans, and yet would enlarge the deficit."
