President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have reached a “tentative deal” on raising the US debt ceiling, according to sources in Washington.
The agreement in principle would bring to an end the months-long stalemate between the Republican controlled Congress and Democrat run White House.
Currently, the debt ceiling stands at $31.4 trillion dollars with the raised limit yet to be announced.
Mr Biden and Mr McCarthy held a 90-minute phone call on Saturday evening to discuss the deal, as the 5 June deadline looms.
The deal would avert an economically destabilising default, so long as they succeed in passing it through the narrowly divided Congress before the Treasury Department runs short of money to cover all its obligations/
Republicans have pushed for steep cuts to spending and other conditions, including new work requirements on some benefit programs for low-income Americans and for funds to be stripped from the Internal Revenue Service, the US tax agency.
They said they want to slow the growth of the U.S. debt, which is now roughly equal to the annual output of the country’s economy.
