by the associated press: Under fire from conservatives, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy held talks with President Joe Biden on Tuesday to sell fellow Republicans on a debt ceiling and budget deal and secured approval in time to avert a potentially catastrophic US default.
Leaders of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus criticized the agreement for meeting demands for spending cuts, and they vowed to try to block passage by Congress. A much larger conservative faction, the Republican Study Committee, declined to take the position. Even common centrist conservatives were not convinced, leaving McCarthy desperate for votes.
The House Rules Committee voted 7-6 on Tuesday to advance a bill dealing with the federal debt ceiling to the full House, with two Republicans joining Democrats in opposing it.
The full House is expected to vote on Wednesday.
read | US debt ceiling deal ready for Congress, Biden says running short on cash
With tough days ahead, the speaker went into overtime, gathering lawmakers for pizza behind closed doors at the Capitol Tuesday evening, after publicly urging skeptical GOP colleagues to “look where the victory is.” Earlier, he said on “Fox & Friends” that “there’s nothing in the bill for Democrats” — hardly a useful statement for Biden.
In a later development, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the spending restrictions in the package would reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion over the decade, a top target for Republicans trying to curb the debt load.
But in a surprise move that could further reduce Republican support, the GOP campaign increases spending by $2.1 billion over the time period to impose work requirements on older Americans who receive food stamps. The CBO said that’s because the final deal exempted veterans and the homeless, expanding food stamp rolls monthly by about 78,000 people.
McCarthy dismissed past questions about the growing opposition, saying “everyone is elected” to vote for their own.
read | US President Joe Biden warns of recession unless Republicans withdraw debt ceiling plan
Quick approval by both the House and Senate would ensure government checks would continue to flow to Social Security recipients, veterans and others, and prevent worldwide financial turmoil by allowing the Treasury to pay down US debt.
The deal, detailed in the 99-page bill, would restrict spending over the next two years, but also include environmental policy changes and expanded work requirements for some older food aid recipients, which Democrats strongly oppose.
The White House said Biden was speaking directly to lawmakers, making more than 100 one-on-one calls. Top administration officials are heading to Capitol Hill to privately brief Democrats ahead of Wednesday’s vote.
With some lawmakers expected to be completely complacent, Biden and McCarthy are counting on drawing majority support from the political center, a rarity in a divided Washington, to prevent a federal default. About 218 votes are needed to pass in the 435-member House.
A sign of dissent emerged from the normally partisan House Rules Committee, which voted to advance the bill to the full House, with two Republicans joining Democrats in opposing it.
read | US wants to be part of India’s economic miracle: official
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jefferies said it was up to McCarthy to poll a two-thirds Republican majority, a high bar the speaker may not be able to reach. Still, Jefferies said Democrats would do their part to avoid failure.
Jeffries said, “It is my expectation that House Republicans will keep their promise and vote at least 150 because it pertains to an agreement they themselves negotiated.” “Democrats will make sure the country doesn’t default.”
McCarthy could expect no help from the far right.
“This deal fails, utterly fails, and that is why these members and others will absolutely oppose this deal,” said Rep. Scott Perry, R-PA, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, of the Capitol. said others outside. “We will do everything in our power to stop it.”
Ominously, the Conservatives warned of potentially trying to oust McCarthy on the deal.
Representative Chip Roy of Texas said, “There’s going to be a reckoning.”
Despite a late-night meeting at the Capitol, Rep. Nancy Mace, RSC, said after a “healthy debate” that she still wasn’t done.
Liberal Democrats denounced new work requirements for older Americans, aged 50-54, in the food assistance program. And some Democratic lawmakers were leading an effort against a surprise provision greenlighting a controversial Mountain Valley pipeline natural gas project through Appalachia.
read | Amid the debt-limit crisis, Biden said, ‘America will not default.’
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she appreciated that Biden was able to tone down the “exorbitant demands” made by Republicans on spending, but she called for food stamps and other environmental Raised serious concerns about the policy changes.
He also had this warning for McCarthy: “He brought us here and it’s up to him to vote.”
Wall Street was taking a wait-and-see approach. Share prices were mixed in Tuesday’s trade. US markets were closed when the deal took place over the weekend.
Overall, the package is a tradeoff that would cut some federal spending for the next two years, along with a suspension of the debt ceiling through January 2025, moving the volatile political issue ahead of the next presidential election. Raising the debt ceiling, now $31.4 trillion, would allow the Treasury to continue borrowing to pay the nation’s already spent bills.
All told, it would keep spending essentially flat for the coming year, while allowing for growth in military and veterans accounts. This would cap the growth rate at 1% for 2025.
Most of the objections were arising on policy issues.
Questions were also being raised about the unanticipated provision that would mandate congressional approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas project critical of Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.VA, whom many Democrats and others see as crucial to fighting climate change. Resist being ineffective.
The top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Including the pipeline provision, Raúl Grijalva said, was “disturbing and deeply disappointing”.
But Manchin on Tuesday touted the pipeline project as something “we know we need.”
The House aims to vote on Wednesday and send the bill to the Senate, where Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Republican Leader McConnell are working to pass by the end of the week.
Schumer called the bill a “sensible compromise”. McConnell said that McCarthy “deserves our thanks.”
Senators, who had largely remained on the sidelines during most of the negotiations between the President and the House Speaker, began to insert themselves more strongly into the debate.
Some senators on both the left and right are pushing for an amendment to reshape the package. This may require time-consuming debates which delay the final approval of the deal.
For one, Democratic Sen. Tim Timm of Virginia plans to file an amendment to remove the pipeline provision.
But making any changes to the package at this stage did not seem feasible with such a short notice. Congress and the White House are racing to meet Monday’s deadline, now less than a week away. That’s when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US would run short of cash and face an unprecedented debt default without action.
A default would almost certainly hurt the US economy and spread around the world, as the stability of the US dollar and the world’s dependence on the country’s leadership came into question.