Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) –Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will meet with top executives of the nation’s biggest banks on Wednesday to discuss the federal debt limit, with the government potentially just two weeks away from a catastrophic payments default.
The 11 a.m. session will include JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, according to a person familiar with the plan. Also this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is expected to gather with finance chiefs as the clock ticks down to her department potentially running out of sufficient cash to make good on all federal obligations.
Yellen last week said it would be helpful for corporate leaders to speak out about their concerns on the debt ceiling. Dimon, for his part, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that JPMorgan had set up a “war room” looking at contingencies if the debt limit isn’t increased in time.
The banking chiefs are in Washington for an annual meeting of the Bank Policy Institute, an industry lobbying group. The gathering is coinciding with an intensification of negotiations between the White House and Republicans over a framework to boost the ceiling and address Republican demands for restrictions on spending.
Negotiators for President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet Wednesday as they try to hash out details of an accord that might include caps on spending, a clawback of unspent Covid-19 funds and an accelerated permits process for energy and other projects.
Congressional leaders in both parties and Biden struck a cautiously optimistic tone after an Oval Office meeting Tuesday, although they gave no indication they bridged any of their policy differences. Biden leaves Wednesday for a Group of Seven meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, but will return on Sunday instead of taking a more extended overseas trip.
Yellen has said the Treasury Department could run out of ways to avoid breaching the debt limit as early as June 1.
