Reuters reports that President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) are "closing in" on a debt ceiling deal.

What's more is that, if Reuters's reporting is accurate, it would appear that the deal might just be in McCarthy's favor - that, despite what he said at the outset, Biden is making significant concessions.

Per Reuters:

U.S. President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy are closing in on a deal that would raise the government's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling for two years while capping spending on most items, a U.S. official told Reuters.

The outlet goes on to provide some specifics about the potential deal.

The deal's details

Reuters cites, among others, an anonymous U.S. official for its report.

The official told the outlet that the deal Biden and McCarthy are negotiating "would increase funding for discretionary spending on military and veterans while essentially holding non-defense discretionary spending at current year levels."

The official also told the outlet that "the White House is considering scaling back its plan to boost funding at the Internal Revenue Service to hire more auditors and target wealthy Americans."

Another anonymous source told Reuters that "the final deal would specify the total amount the government could spend on discretionary programs like housing and education."

Overall, the deal, according to Reuters's sources, would raise the debt ceiling by over $1 trillion. Biden and McCarthy, apparently, are already in agreement about most of that $1 trillion. There is only disagreement, according to Reuters, over about $70 billion of the deal.

Background

The U.S. Treasury Department has estimated that the federal government will no longer be able to pay its debts as of June 1. Although, others have put the actual default date closer to mid-June.

Whatever the case may be, time is certainly of the essence for Biden and McCarthy to reach a deal regarding the debt ceiling or else face the negative economic consequences of default.

At the time of the writing, the last meeting between Biden and McCarthy took place on Thursday. Afterward, both sides made it clear that a deal had not been reached.

Even should Biden and McCarthy reach a deal between themselves, this will not be the end of the matter. The deal would still have to be approved by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. And, this, in itself, may turn out to be problematic.

Biden and McCarthy are expected to meet again on Friday.