Joe Biden tasks a new team with trying to stop a debt-ceiling standoff ever happening again

• President Joe Biden will create a team tasked with preventing future debt-ceiling standoffs.
• Biden and Kevin McCarthy reached an 11th-hour deal to prevent a catastrophic default in late May.
• The White House said it wants to stop politicians “holding hostage the full faith and credit” of the US.

US President Joe Biden has created a working group tasked with stopping future debt-ceiling standoffs.

"Now that the latest debt ceiling crisis is behind us, it is necessary to explore all legal and policy options to prevent Congress from ever again holding hostage the full faith and credit of the United States," the White House said in a statement, per Bloomberg.

The group is largely made up of Biden administration officials including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Attorney General Merrick Garland, the publication reported.

In late May, Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached an 11th-hour deal to raise the US's borrowing limit, before the government could reach a so-called "X date" where it would no longer be able to repay its debts.

Economists believe that a default would have proved catastrophic, cratering growth and triggering a brutal stock-market crash.

Progressive House Democrats called for Biden to put an end to the potential crisis by invoking the 14th Amendment, which would do away with the idea of a debt ceiling entirely.

The government currently has a self-imposed borrowing limit, which Biden suspended until January 2025 when he signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 back in June.