President

joe

Biden is poised to discuss the debt ceiling with congressional leaders at the White House, with reverberations around the world as the first outlines of a possible deal emerge from painfully slow negotiations.

To raise the stakes, the Tuesday afternoon session comes as Biden prepares to leave for the Group of 7 summit in Japan, where US leadership will take the global stage later this week. The President and Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy

(R-Bakersfield)

trying to strike a budget deal before the U.S. Treasury runs out of money to continue paying the country’s bills, which could happen as early as June 1.

While Biden has remained optimistic that we will be able to do this, McCarthy is urging the president to move faster. The speaker says they need an agreement quickly to avoid default. Expectations are low that a deal is imminent,

However

. Talks with staff are more likely to continue while the president is abroad.

How much is too much?” McCarthy said Tuesday of the country’s $31 trillion debt burden, pushing for tougher job requirements for government aid recipients as a way to cut spending.

McCarthy did not suggest that Biden cancel his trip abroad. But he said at the Capitol, we have 16 days to go, I don’t think I would go out of the country for eight days.”

Biden was optimistic, saying over the weekend, “There is a desire on their part as well as ours to come to an agreement.”

This time, the debt ceiling crisis could turn into a real disaster

It is the second time in a week that Biden

wants to have

met with McCarthy and other congressional leaders at the White House. Biden faces a politically divided Congress over the debt ceiling for the first time, a test for both the president and McCarthy as they work to avert an economic crisis that could result from a federal bankruptcy. Also present at the meeting are Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.).

Even as the Democratic president and Republican speakers mull over the politics of the issue, with Biden insisting he is not negotiating the debt ceiling and McCarthy working to enforce spending cuts, several areas of potential agreement appear to be emerging.

For most of the past week, talks have been going on in the Capitol, behind-closed-door discussions with the White House and congressional staff discussing what it would take to reach a budget deal that would unlock a separate vote to approve the lifting the borrowing capacity of the nations to a devastating default.

Among the items on the table are reclaiming about $30 billion in unused COVID-19 money, imposing future budget caps, changing permit rules to facilitate energy development and imposing work requirements on government aid recipients, according to those familiar with the talks.

Democrats are increasingly concerned about the idea of ​​putting new job requirements for state aid recipients on the table after Biden suggested he might be open to such changes.

Democratic leader

Jeffries staff tried to reassure them in talks late Monday, while a separate group of more centrist Democrats have informed their moderate Republican colleagues that they are willing to work something out to reach a deal on the debt ceiling, aides said Tuesday.

In the debt ceiling stalemate, the COVID era of government investment is giving way to a new focus on deficits

While McCarthy

McCarthy

has complained

That

talks are moving slowly and he said he first met Biden over 100 days ago Biden has said it took McCarthy all this time to bring forward his own proposal after the Republicans failed to get their prepare its own budget.

Biden has urged Republicans to rule out default and separate budget issues from the need to raise the country’s debt limit.

While Biden indicated over the weekend that he may be open to stricter job requirements for certain government aid programs, the White House has indicated that he is only referring to cash aid programs and not food stamps or anything that would take people’s health care away. Coverage.

The debt limit must be lifted, as has been done countless times before, in order to continue borrowing to pay bills already accrued.

Adding to the pressure on Washington to reach a deal, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Monday that agency estimates remain unchanged

possibly X

date by which the US could perhaps run out of cash as early as June 1.

But Yellen left room for a possible one in a letter to the House and Senate

time

extension

on a national default

stating that the actual date the Treasury exhausts the extraordinary measures may be several days or weeks later than these estimates.

It is essential that Congress act as soon as possible, Yellen said in remarks to the Independent Community Bankers of America on Tuesday.

“In my judgment and that of economists across the board, a US bankruptcy would create an economic and financial catastrophe,” she said.

Time is decreasing. Congress has only a few days in which both the House and Senate meet to pass legislation.

It’s time for the principals to get more involved, get their poets out, said Senator John Thune (RS.D.), the whip of the majority.

Details of a possible budget deal remain politically daunting, and it’s not at all clear that they go far enough to meet McCarthy’s hard fact in the House or would be acceptable to

a large amount

Democrats whose votes are almost certainly needed to secure a final deal.

Republicans led by McCarthy want Biden to accept their proposal to reverse spending, limit future spending and make other policy changes to the package passed by House Republicans last month. McCarthy says the House is the only chamber that has taken action to raise the debt ceiling. But the house bill is

probably doomed almost certainly to failure

in the Senate, controlled by Democrats, and Biden has said he would veto it.

An increase in the debt limit would not allow new federal spending. It would only allow borrowing to pay for what Congress has already approved.

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.