After a speech on Wall Street on Monday, the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy detailed before his parliamentary group his plan to avoid a default of payment of the United States.

Like almost all major economies, the world's leading power lives on credit. But unlike other developed countries, America regularly faces a legal constraint: the debt ceiling, which must be regularly raised by Congress.

"Madness!"

This famous "ceiling" of 31.400 trillion dollars was reached in mid-January.

Temporary emergency measures have been taken to continue paying the debt, but without an agreement in Congress to raise this ceiling, the United States will find itself in default, unable to meet its financial commitments, perhaps as early as this summer.

But for the past decade, the Republicans have turned this routine legislative procedure into an instrument of political pressure.

With their new majority in the House of Representatives, they promised to set very strict conditions for any increase in this ceiling, so as not to give a so-called "blank check" to the Biden administration.

The US © debt ceiling / AFP

"It's time to stop this madness!" urged Kevin McCarthy, who poses as an uncompromising defender of budgetary rigour.

"The Democrats' reckless spending triggered inflation, a banking crisis and many other problems," he charged on Twitter.

His plan, presented Tuesday to his peers in Congress, includes bringing the amount of federal government spending back to the level of 2022, and limiting its growth to 1% per year over the next ten years.

Leap into the unknown

The Democrats are strongly opposed to the Republican project, believing that making an increase in the debt ceiling conditional on budget cuts amounts to blackmail.

"This wish list is just a rehash of the bad ideas we've been hearing about for weeks," Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday.

Engaged in a bitter battle with the Biden camp, Kevin McCarthy wants to organize a vote on this text in plenary session by the end of the month -- to increase the pressure.

Without an agreement, US and global finance risks plunging into the unknown.

The Republican leader was received in early February by Joe Biden to discuss possible outcomes.

The two officials then acknowledged their differences, failing to find a compromise.

Speaker McCarthy, elected in pain in January, will first have to overcome the dissensions in his ranks between the right wing of his party, which advocates budgetary orthodoxy, and moderate elected officials, to ensure that this project can be adopted in the House.

© 2023 AFP