Washington: US on Sunday appeared to be heading for a deep economic crisis as lawmakers failed to reach a consensus on increasing the nation’s USD 14.3 trillion debt limit.
Fast running out of time, leaders of both Democratic and Republican parties and the White House were scrambling to reach a consensus so that President Barack Obama could sign the legislation to increase the debt limit before the Treasury runs out of money to pay its bill on August 2.
However, till late on Saturday, there appeared to be no indication of a compromise as top leaders from both the Republican and Democratic parties were blaming each other in the public. While the Republicans have the majority in the House of Representatives, the Democrats have the majority in the Senate.
Both the Chambers of the US Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate must pass identical bills on the debt ceiling before it could be sent to the White House for Obama to sign that into law. But that has not been the case so far.
On Saturday, the House of Representatives rejected by 173-247 votes a debt-ceiling plan from the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid.
Following which leaders from both the parties went public blasting each other.
Late in the evening, Obama too meet Reid and the House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
The Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, told reporters that a deal have been reached, which Reid quickly denied.
“The Republican leader held a press conference to announce they’re in talks with the president and that a bargain to raise the debt limit is in the works and is close. That’s not true, the agreement is not in a meaningful way,” Reid said.
The Democratic Senator from New Jersey, Frank Lautenberg stressed that the Republican opposition to a deficit deal is putting middle-class families and the US economy in great danger.
“Let’s be clear: A default will injure America’s reputation around the world. It will weaken faith in the world’s most respected financial power, leaving our country’s credibility, stability and financial leadership in doubt,” he said.
“The Speaker chose, when he didn’t have the votes, instead of to reach out in a bipartisan way to see how we could work together, he chose to go to the dark side,” Pelosi said.
“Let me repeat. And I repeat, he chose to go to the dark side by putting forth a bill that he himself told his Members [it] would sink in the Senate — and I add, lead to default, lead to default. We cannot default. We are the greatest country that ever existed in the history of the world,” she said. (PTI)
