Conservatives dispute warning of imminent default, noting June traditionally a big tax revenue month

Fiscal conservatives say the U.S. won't default on its debt in early June, arguing that the Biden administration is attempting to "pressure" House Speaker Kevin McCarthy into agreeing to raising the debt ceiling without offset spending cuts.

"We're not going to default on June 1," Arizona GOP Rep. Andy Biggs, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said Tuesday, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen continues to warn about how missing that deadline could result in economic disaster.

Yellen said as recently as Tuesday the U.S. could default in "early June, and potentially as early as June 1," if the debt limit is not raised. 

"We're not going to default even if you don't raise the debt ceiling," Biggs also said on the "Just the News Not Noise" TV program. "We're going to have one of our biggest months of revenue in the month of June. ... So people need to understand you're not going to default."

Georgia Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene said Wednesday the administration is building a "pressure cooker campaign" to push the House GOP to raise the debt limit without anything else included.

"They want to get Republicans up in a tizzy," she said on the Real America's Voice TV network. "We're cool as a cucumber because we aren't concerned over it. We did our job. We passed a bill that cut $4.8 trillion in spending to raise Joe Biden's debt ceiling, and he's the one who can't come to the table."

The spending reductions in GOP-led bill are estimated over a 10-year period.

"Joe Biden has been in this town for 50 years," continued Greene, another one of the House's most conservative members.  

Biggs said the administration does not want to reduce federal spending levels at all, despite a record deficit and national debt.

"Biggs is saying June is a big revenue month: That’s true because quarterly tax payments are paid in June," Marc Goldwein, a budget expert at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Wednesday. 

However, he said those payments aren’t due until June 15, "so they aren’t going to save us until we can otherwise get to June 13 or so."

Though May is just a few days from ending, it's still too early to know exactly when the U.S. will default without a statuary debt-ceiling increase, Goldwein also said. 

"We have big payments on June 1 and June 2, so either of those are possible," he continued. "But it could also be as late as June 7 to 9 based on other estimates. But we shouldn’t try to go to the very edge. We should just reach a deal."