A measure to extend the US debt limit for nearly four months moved to a vote yesterday and the White House said the president would sign the bill if it cleared the US Congress, easing uncertainty that could have threatened the US economy.
The debt limit “suspension,” which would allow the government to borrow money until May 19, was due to come to a vote in the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives yesterday without amendments.
House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions said he believed the measure would achieve “near unanimous support” from the House Republican caucus, which would guarantee its passage.
US President Barack Obama “would not stand in the way of the bill becoming law,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said earlier at a briefing. US Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid has similarly expressed approval.
The administration and some Democrats made clear on Tuesday they would prefer a longer-term reprieve from having again to seek an expansion of the nation’s borrowing capacity, but the White House welcomed movement on the contentious issue, which has financial markets worried about a self-engineered US debt default.
The US is on track to run out of room under its borrowing limit of US$16.4 trillion imposed by congress sometime between next month and early March, and a vote to suspend the debt ceiling would take the prospect of default off the table at least temporarily.
Congressional Republicans have in the past balked at raising the debt cap without securing matching or greater spending cuts in exchange, but they backed down from that stance at a policy retreat last week, preferring to shift the focus of budget battles with the White House to a March 1 date for automatic deep spending cuts and a March 27 expiration of funding for government agencies and programs.
Instead of making budget cuts a precondition for expanding US borrowing authority, the Republican bill would require both the house and senate to pass budgets by April 15, on pain of having members’ paychecks withheld should they fail to do so.
The White House cautioned that an extension only would push a debt ceiling crisis into the not-too-distant future.
“A temporary solution is not enough to remove the threat of default that Republicans in the congress have held over the economy,” the White House’s budget office said in a statement.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2