In his first speech from the Oval Office, President Biden talks about avoiding financial collapse

2023-06-03 15:14:48, Kosova & Bota CNA

In his first speech from the Oval Office, President Biden talks about avoiding

The President of the USA, Joe Biden

President Joe Biden gave a speech Friday night after passing legislation to raise the government's debt ceiling until early 2025. The law was passed after weeks of tough negotiations but ultimately avoided a financial crisis with catastrophic consequences. As Voice of America correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, President Biden spoke for the first time from the Oval Office, in order to give due importance to the moment.

Since taking office in early 2021, President Joe Biden has never addressed the nation from the Oval Office. This happened on Friday.

"Nobody got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed. We avoided a crisis and an economic collapse ," said President Biden.

On Saturday, President Biden signs the bill passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate earlier in the week.

The law allows the government to continue borrowing for the next 19 months to meet its needs and avoid bankruptcy, which could wreak havoc on financial systems around the globe.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who negotiated with President Biden, emphasized the savings aspect, saying the bill provides the largest budget cuts Congress has ever passed.

"This will be the $2.1 trillion law ," he said.

Raising the debt ceiling is a routine process that has occurred 78 times since 1960, but which since 2011 has become a source of conflict due to divisions in the United States' governing system.

Efforts are already being made to reform the process, such as with new legislation that would force lawmakers to vote annually on debt reduction policies, automatically suspending the debt ceiling as well.

"It would bring these two issues together in a way that would de-risk the debt ceiling and eliminate the idea of ??bankruptcy once and for all, by tying it to the annual budgeting process," says Rachel Snyderman, of Bipartisan Policy Center.

The United States already has a debt of 31.4 trillion dollars and continues to increase it.

The Congressional Budget Office projects a federal budget deficit of $1.5 trillion for 2023, which could double to nearly $2.7 trillion by 2033./ VOA