May 25, 2023
location_onWashington D.C.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy asserted the debt ceiling standoff was “not my fault” as he sent Republican negotiators to the White House to finish talks.
“It is not my fault that the Democrats cannot give up on their spending. You would think, we have the most revenue in… history coming in, but when the Democrats were in power, they spent the most money, so we have the most expenses going out… It’s not a revenue problem; it’s a spending problem,” said McCarthy.
Meanwhile, the White House said that the President and the Speaker have agreed that default is not an option.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “The President’s team will continue to negotiate in good faith to reach a reasonable bipartisan budget agreement. That’s what the President and the Speaker agreed to, and that’s what they tasked their teams with reaching from this outset.”
Late in the day, the Fitch Ratings agency placed the United States’ AAA credit on “ratings watch negative,” warning of a possible downgrade because of what it called the “brinkmanship” and “political partisanship” over lifting the debt ceiling.
