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WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday he believed Democrats would agree to freeze government spending to prevent a U.S. debt default and wanted to discuss the idea with President Joe Biden.

Republicans who now control the House have threatened to use the debt ceiling as a way to demand spending cuts from Biden’s Democrats, who control the US Senate.

This has raised concerns in Washington and on Wall Street about a bitter fight that could be as damaging as the protracted war of 2011, which led to a short-term reduction in the US debt and years of forced cuts in domestic and military spending.

“I want to sit down with him right now so there’s no problem,” McCarthy said in an interview with Fox News, referring to Biden. “I’m sure he knows that there are areas that we can change that will put America on a path where we can protect these rights instead of putting them in bankruptcy the way they’ve been doing.”

McCarthy pointed to the Trump administration’s deal with US lawmakers in 2019 to suspend the debt ceiling on Treasury Department borrowing until another day as evidence that such a breach is possible.

“I believe that we can sit down with anyone who wants to work together. I believe that this president can be that person,” he said.

The chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Mr. James Comer, said on Sunday that he hoped that the debt default could be prevented, but he put the onus on the Democrats to accept the reduction.

“The Republicans were elected with the approval of the American people in the midterm elections. We campaigned on the fact that we were going to be serious about spending cuts,” Comer said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“So the Senate will have to recognize the fact that we are not going to stop until we see meaningful change in terms of spending.”

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday that the United States could reach $3.4 trillion on January 19, forcing the Treasury to initiate extraordinary monetary policy measures that could prevent a deficit until early June.

Congress created the debt ceiling in 1917 to give the government greater borrowing capacity, and it must approve each increase to ensure that the United States meets its debt obligations and avoids bad debt.

Narration by Doina Chiacu and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Grant McCool

Our Policy: The Thomson Reuters Trust Rules.

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