the national debt ceiling stalemate remains but there are hints of progress President Biden speaking publicly today after talking with Congressional leaders Tuesday saying he's quote confident an agreement will be reached before the clock runs out and the U.S risks defaulting on its debt the treasury Department warning the government could be out of cash to pay its bills as early as June 1st Biden making the comments today just moments before departing for Japan a trip he's cutting short to continue the debt negotiations both the president and Republican house Speaker Kevin McCarthy calling the discussions productive earlier today I spoke with New Jersey representative Andy Kim for his thoughts this is just simply about paying our bills I voted twice on the Trump Administration to raise the debt ceiling there in a clean way even though I had huge disagreements with President trump it was the right thing to do the financial stability of America should never be brought into question and I've recently talked about how this is just playing into the hands of our Global competitors this is just making China have a good day watching our democracy continue to struggle to just even pay the bills and move forward the talks are now centered around a republican package that ties raising the debt ceiling to spending cuts including stricter rules around federal aid programs like tougher work requirements for welfare recipients it's all coming down to the wire in a situation that could dramatically impact everyone's pocket for more I'm joined by budget and finance writer John reitmeyer who's at the state house with the latest John you know it's always good to talk to you on days like this to help us make sense of what is happening with these talks at the federal level yeah and I think right off the top it's probably worth mentioning that it's a good thing that there are talks happening and and so the the principles involved in this the president and the Congressional leaders are in a room it looks like they are trying to make some progress uh initially you heard from the president that he didn't even want to discuss anything related to spending when they talk about the debt ceiling but now it looks like those that that discussion that type of a discussion is occurring in my experiencing covering things like this in Trenton It's always important when the principals are all in a room together and trying to come to an agreement you get worried when everyone sort of breaks away and so the fact that that's happening right now is probably a good thing in terms of avoiding a default however you know worth mentioning here in New Jersey that it looks like things like the clawback of federal pandemic Aid remains on the table as they talk in Washington and so New Jersey's one one of the states that sells a big share of its federal aid left to spend and so there are things that Governor Murphy and lawmakers have identified that they'd like to do with that money that's yet to be appropriated and so if you know things like that if they're talking about big spending cuts at the federal level of other resources these could all have an impact on New Jersey well and you are in Trenton where you had an opportunity to hear from the state treasurer and I'm wondering if there were any questions about this yeah during the this afternoon's hearing on on really matters related to the state budget the treasurer was asked about the potential impact that New Jersey could feel if that an agreement can't be reached in Washington and if they do uh get to this June 1 date that the the U.S treasury secretary has talked about without reaching an agreement which would mean the federal government can't pay its bills which include debt payments and so the treasurer here in New Jersey she went over certainly the consequences and and emphasized that New Jersey's built up a big Surplus in recent years and these this is one of the reasons why you do that so when there are these unpredictable factors occurring outside of of their control the state does have a cushion or a rainy day fund to help in case uh revenues plummet as a result of but none of these disagreements none of this though John Washington sure I mean but none of this John bodes well as budget talks here in the state happen especially if you can get us up to speed with the fact that OLS has now sliced a massive amount off of their revenue predictions that's right and both now the treasury which we we did receive some new forecasts from treasury uh today as well as OLS uh basically downgraded Revenue forecasts for both the remaining weeks of the current fiscal year which which ends on June 30th and then for the new fiscal year that we'll be entering into on July 1 and so the good news is because of the big Surplus that the state has amassed and because revenues were on a much better Pace sort of headed into this this final uh segment of the fiscal year the state's in in pretty good shape to weather these types of of changes in in the revenue Outlook and it's pretty remarkable if you think and you know this just a few years ago when the Surplus wasn't so robust we'd be talking about things like cuts to pension funding or maybe education Aid or property tax relief and right now a lot of those types of things are on the table none of those things are on the table every all all right John wrightmeyer for us in Trenton thanks John you're welcome [Music] [Music]