The debate about the US debt limit became a drama. For the final, President Biden chose a special stage and big words. His message after many crisis scenarios and bitter party politics: all clear and forgiving.
After the cross-party agreement on a solution to the US debt dispute, President Joe Biden called for cooperation between Democrats and Republicans.
With a highly symbolic appearance, Biden celebrated the averting of a government default in the evening (local time) and warned that in dramatic situations like this there is no way around non-partisan cooperation.
“It couldn’t have been more at stake,” the Democrat said in an address to the nation from the Oval Office at the White House. “We prevented an economic crisis and an economic collapse.”
Speech at prime time
It was Biden’s first official address to the nation from the Oval Office since taking office almost two and a half years ago. Such speeches from the President’s office at government headquarters, broadcast live on US prime-time television, are a rarity and are usually reserved for major situations and crises.
Biden now used the special stage to give the all-clear after weeks of invoked catastrophe scenarios and to strike a conciliatory tone despite the upcoming presidential election campaign in a politically deeply divided country.
Congress prevented ability to pay
The US Congress averted the government’s insolvency on Thursday by passing a law almost at the last minute. In the USA, the parliament sets a debt ceiling at irregular intervals and thus determines how much money the state can borrow.
Only after a long nail-biter and bitter party-political battles did Biden’s Democrats and the Republicans agree on a compromise. According to the Ministry of Finance, without this the government would have run out of money on Monday. A default by the world’s largest economy could have triggered a global financial crisis and economic downturn.
Unusual tones in Washington
Biden announced he would sign the law into law on Saturday. Among other things, he thanked the Republican Chairman of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, with whom he had personally fought for a compromise in various rounds of negotiations.
McCarthy and he got along well, were direct and honest with each other, and both sides kept their word. In the political climate in the USA, in which Democrats and Republicans – especially on the fringes of both parties – are sometimes downright hostile towards each other, such tones are now rare.