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Debt ceiling talks resume as Biden, McCarPATRICK SEMANSKY / ASSOCIATED PRESS lt;Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks 1 with members of the press after participating in a 1 phone call on the debt ceiling with President Joe Biden, Sunday on Capitol Hill in Washington. 1BY STEPHEN GROVES, ZEKE MILLER AND JOSH BOAKASSOCIATED PRESSWASHINGTON — Debt ceiling talks between the White House and House Republicans resumed Sunday at the Capitol as Washington races to strike a budget compromise along with a deal to raise the nation’s borrowing limit and avert an economy-wrecking federal default.President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke by phone Sunday while the president was returning home on Air Force One after the Group of Seven summit in Japan. Upbeat, McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters at the Capitol that the call was “productive” and that the on-again, off-again negotiations between his staff and White House representatives are focused on spending cuts.Biden and McCarthy are set to meet for a pivotal meeting Monday at the White House.Negotiators for the Democratic president and Republican speaker met as talks appear to be narrowing on a 2024 budget year cap that would be key to resolving the standoff. They face a deadline, as soon as June 1, when the government could run out of cash to pay its bills. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that June 1 is a “hard deadline.” McCarthy said after hiscall with Biden that “I think we can solve some of these problems if he understands what we’re looking at.” The speaker added, “But I’ve been very clear to him from the very beginning. We have to spend less money than we spent last year.”McCarthy emerged from that conversation sounding optimistic and was careful not to criticize Biden’s trip, as he had before. He did caution, “There’s no agreement on anything.”“We’re looking at, how do we have a victory for this country?” McCarthy said. He said he did not think the final legislation would remake the federal budget and the country’s debt, but at least “put us on a path to change the behavior of this runaway spending.”The White House confirmed the Monday meeting and late Sunday talks but did not elaborate on the leaders’ call.Earlier, Biden used his concluding news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, to warn House Republicans that they must move off their “extreme positions” over raising the debt limit and that there would be no agreement to avoid a catastrophic default only on their terms.Biden said “it’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no deal to be made solely, solely, on their partisan terms.” He said he haddone his part in attempting to raise the borrowing limit so the government can keep paying its bills, by agreeing to significant cuts in spending. “Now it’s time for the other side to move from their extreme position.”Biden had been scheduled to travel from Hiroshima to Papua New Guinea and Australia, but cut short his trip in light of the strained negotiations with Capitol Hill.Even with a new wave of tax revenue expected soon, perhaps giving both sides more time to negotiate, Yellen said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “the odds of reaching June 15, while being able to pay all of our bills, is quite low.”GOP lawmakers are holding tight to demands for sharp spending cuts withcaps on future spending, l rejecting the alternatives r proposed by the White lt;House for reducing deficits 1 in part with revenue from taxes. 5Republicans want to roll lt;back next year’s spending to 1 2022 levels, but the White ] House has proposed keeping 1 2024 the same as it is now, in 1 the 2023 budget year. Republicans initially sought to lt;impose spending caps for 10 ( years, though the latest pro- 5 posal narrowed that to about 1 six. The White House wants i a two-year budget deal. ^A compromise on those topline spending levels 1 would enable McCarthy to 1 deliver for conservatives, 1 while not being so severe ( that it would chase off the Democratic votes that would ] be needed in the divided ]
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