The Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling deal was queried by the New York Times
The U.S. Treasury Problem’s Final State: a Report from the House Rules Committee on House Budget Issues for the 2020 Caucus
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said there may be a weekend vote to get the legislation passed before June 5, the date at which the Treasury Department has said the U.S. may run out of money to pay its bills.
Another conservative, Rep. Tom Massie, R-Ky., who was seen as a potential third vote to block the bill, said he anticipates “voting for this rule.” He said members of the Rules panel who decide whether a bill moves to a full vote on the House floor owe the rest of Congress “an honest shake” and opportunity to voice their opinion with a vote on the House floor.
The deal could be derailed if three GOP members join with Democrats. Democratic members could also decide to support the legislation since President Biden sealed the debt deal.
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday afternoon. The bill that the speaker drafted to the house floor can be found on the panel with nine Republicans and four Democrats.
The majority of the House Republican conference is going to vote for this bill. How could they not? He said it’s an historic accomplishment, noting the reduction in spending and changes to welfare reform policy.
Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, who chairs the conservative Main Street Caucus, maintains the compromise legislation can still pass the House.
The fact that conservatives in the GOP and Democrats are not happy with the compromise deal isn’t surprising. Top congressional leaders as well as President Biden said that no one would walk away completely satisfied. Rep. Greg Casar, member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told All Things Considered co-host Ailsa Chang Tuesday that “many” in the caucus are leaning against the bill over some of the spending cuts. “We have to hold the line against people getting screwed, getting kicked off of vital food programs, getting kicked off of their child core assistance, losing health care or losing housing,” Casar said. The group feels that savings could have been found by closing tax loopholes for wealthy taxpayers.
“With a narrow majority in the House, we got the most conservative outcome we possibly could,” the North Carolina Republican said. I want more, but I’m happy with what we have here.
The deal Biden and McCarthy struck is a modest package of spending nips and safety-net tucks. Some of the policy is dumb like cutting funding for I.R.S. enforcement and cruel like adding work requirements for older adults who need food stamps. It’s about a $69 billion cut to spending next year and a $112 billion cut in 2025, with no significant budget caps or automatic cuts kicking in after two years. The biggest achievements from the Inflation Reduction Act to student loan cancellation are intact.
With just a few days to spare, Congress passed a piece of compromise legislation brokered by President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Anger over House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s deal with President Biden to raise the debt ceiling is bubbling over, with some conservative members threatening to oust McCarthy as speaker.
Roy said there was a “breach” in the structure that was set up by House Republicans after they voted to have McCarthy as speaker. He vowed to fight the new compromise bill and, without mentioning the speaker by name, added: “No matter what happens, there is going to be a reckoning.”
Texas Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the Freedom Caucus, was even more blunt: “The Republican conference right now has been torn asunder,” he said. “Not one Republican should vote for this deal – not one.”
“We will do everything in our power to stop the deal, because these members and others will be opposed to the deal and it will fail,” Scott said during the press conference with caucus members Tuesday afternoon.
Threatening default — and we came within days of it this time — in order to get a deal like this is like threatening to detonate a bomb beneath the bank unless the teller gives you $150 and a commemorative mug. It’s a strange mismatch of means and ends.
House-Debates the Biden Christie Debt Ceiling Bill as Default Deadline looms: A Balance Act for the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023
The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which would lift the debt limit for nearly two years, overwhelmingly cleared the chamber Wednesday evening on a 314-117 vote.
McCarthy will be tested as speaker by the negotiations for the deal and subsequent vote. With his narrow majority, McCarthy had a bit of a balancing act — crafting a deal that satisfied the demands of the majority of his conference without alienating some of the Democratic lawmakers he needed to support the bill in order for it to pass.
During the debate the Democrats repeated their claim that Republicans held the economy hostage because they did not agree to raise the debt limit.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries praised his members for pushing back against “extreme MAGA Republican efforts to jam right-wing cuts down the throat of the American people.”
The 99-page bill cleared a procedural hurdle Wednesday afternoon with bipartisan support. Republicans were the only ones to vote in favor of the rule for a few minutes, because Democrats held back on voting.
“I probably would’ve done the same thing,” McCarthy said of Jeffries’ choice to wait until the last minute to give his members the green light to vote. “Well played.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/31/1179246766/house-debates-the-biden-mccarthy-debt-ceiling-bill-as-default-deadline-looms
The Congressional Budget Committee’s Standing Committee Report on the Senate Minority Rights Against a Comprehensive Measure to Rejuvenate a Bipartisan Deal
The bill phases in higher age limits for work requirements on certain federal safety net programs like food stamps, lifting the maximum age from 50 to 54 by 2025. It also would create new exemptions that waive those requirements for all veterans and those experiencing homelessness, and young adults between 18-24-years old aging out of foster care.
The CBO forecasts the overall agreement would cut federal deficits by about $1.5 trillion over the next decade. The deficits were projected to be under 7% prior to the deal. Most of the deficit reduction would come from caps on discretionary spending other than defense — which makes up a small portion of the federal budget.
A bloc of conservative members expressed their dismay at some of the provisions in the legislation, and argue McCarthy didn’t align the bill close enough to a version the House passed in April.
Ahead of the vote, congressman Don Bacon said that people want to compare to what they want. “But they should compare to where we were at, which was we were going to get a clean debt ceiling with nothing.”
GOP members left a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday night largely quashing the idea that disaffected members could move to oust McCarthy under a provision he agreed to during his fight for the gavel that allows any single lawmaker to bring up a snap vote to potentially oust the speaker.
Some Democrats tried to pass a bill to avoid a catastrophic default while at the same time voting for legislation with provisions they wouldn’t approve of.
Annie Kuster said Biden was involved in reaching out to members to raise their support for the bill. The two talked on the phone on Monday. A major part of Democratic votes came from the New Democrat Coalition chaired by Kuster. She said she hoped the compromise deals would pave the way for a new chapter in bipartisanship.
It’s been a difficult time working across the aisle in the Capitol since the prior president took office. It’s been very painful,” she said. The agreement is seen by me as a turning of corner toward a more productive relationship between Republicans and Democrats.
“There was a group of us who felt strongly that while we didn’t like the bill and we didn’t like the way it was negotiated in many ways, we weren’t going to let our country go over a fiscal cliff and that had to be our guiding force,” she said.
