President Biden is set to welcome Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other top congressional leaders to the White House on Tuesday for a pivotal round of discussions about the nation’s taxes, spending and debt as a potentially catastrophic government default rapidly approaches.The talks come just weeks before the United States is expected to run out of cash to pay its bills unless the nation’s borrowing cap is lifted. Like previous moments of brinkmanship, the discussions have echoes of 2011 and 2013, when congressional Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling unless a Democratic president agreed to curb federal spending and reduce budget deficits. The same dynamic is at play now, but with a crucial difference: The parties share almost no common ground on tax and spending proposals that are meant to reduce the growth of the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt.The meeting is not expected to produce anything close to final agreement on a …
