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Biden and McCarthy will discuss US debt

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Washington, Jan 30 (Prensa Latina) President Joe Biden and the leader of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, will meet for the first time on Wednesday to discuss the United States debt, the White House confirmed today.

At the meeting, Biden will remind McCarthy of his “constitutional obligation to avoid a national default, as every other House and Senate leader has done,” according to a statement from the presidential office on CNN.

Also, “the president will stress that the economic security of all Americans cannot be held hostage to unpopular cuts and will ask about the House leader’s plan,” the text added.

The meeting comes after the Treasury Department took extraordinary measures for the government to continue paying its bills after reaching the debt ceiling established by Congress on January 19.

For his part, McCarthy suggested that defense spending could potentially be on the table, but made it clear that cuts to Social Security and Medicare were not an option.

“I want to find a reasonable and responsible way that we can raise the debt limit and get on the path of balance at the same time,” McCarthy told CBS.

The leader of the Lower House will arrive at the meeting with the support of almost half of the Senate Republican Conference, which has warned of its opposition to raising the debt ceiling unless fiscal reforms are carried out.

In a letter to Biden, the senators argued that any increase must be accompanied by cuts in federal spending or “significant structural reform in spending.”

The debt ceiling is the total amount of money the government is authorized to borrow to meet its legal obligations and pay, among other commitments, Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, and interest on the national debt.

A default would cause the loss of millions of jobs and a deep recession with global implications.

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