Sen. King weighs in on raising the U.S. debt ceiling

WASHINGTON (WABI) - Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, is weighing in on the back and forth between lawmakers on raising the U.S. debt ceiling.

President Joe Biden is set to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday to address the debt limit, but the two sides remain far apart.

Republicans have demanded steep spending cuts as the price of agreeing to raise the debt limit.

Biden argues the debt ceiling shouldn’t be used as leverage in budget talks.

King tells TV5 reigning in federal spending is the right conversation to be having, but now is the wrong time.

“This is not about future spending. This is about allowing the government to pay the bills it’s already incurred. It’s like, at the end of the month, you say, well, we got a financial problem here. Let’s not pay our credit card bill for all the things that we bought in the last month. That’s exactly what we’re talking about here. We ought to pay our bills, not take a risk with a catastrophic failure of the US economy put everybody’s jobs and incomes and everything at risk,” King said.

Some have said without moving past the current stalemate, the U.S. could default on its debt as early as June 1.

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