Debt-ceiling talks are “up and down,” Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a key deputy for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, told reporters on Friday.
“We are in the middle of a lot of different conversations and a lot of different paper coming back and forth, and as I said, the details are thornier, the consequences are greater,” McHenry said.
“The leaks don’t serve getting an agreement that changes the trajectory of the country,” the GOP congressman also said, in an apparent reference to reports revealing elements of the emerging debt-limit deal.
When asked if negotiators could bring matters to a close on Friday, McHenry responded by throwing his hands up.
COMP,
were gaining Friday, with the advance attributed in part to rising hopes for a debt-ceiling deal.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been warning that the U.S. government could become unable to meet all of its obligations as soon as this coming Thursday if Congress doesn’t raise the limit on federal borrowing, though some Republicans have expressed skepticism about her deadline.
In August 2011, lawmakers approved an increase to the limit just hours before a potential government default. Within days, the U.S. lost its triple-A credit rating from S&P for the first time in history, with the ratings agency saying the American political system had become less stable.
U.S. stocks plunged in August 2011 following that downgrade from S&P.
On Wednesday evening, Fitch Ratings warned that it might cut the country’s triple-A credit rating.
Related: McCarthy addresses debt-ceiling angst: ‘I would not, if I was in the markets, be afraid of anything’
