McCarthy labors to shore up GOP votes for debt deal in time to prevent U.S. default
Under fire from conservatives, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy worked strenuously Tuesday to sell fellow Republicans on the debt ceiling and budget deal that he negotiated with President Joe Biden and win approval in time to avert a potentially disastrous U.S. default.
Leaders of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus lambasted the compromise as falling well short of the spending cuts that they demand, and they vowed to try to halt passage by Congress. A much larger conservative faction, the Republican Study Committee, declined to take a position, leaving McCarthy hunting for votes.
The speaker urged skeptical GOP colleagues to “look at where the victories are.” He said on “Fox and Friends” of the Democrats, “There’s nothing in the bill for them.”
A key test was coming late Tuesday, when the House Rules Committee was to consider the and vote on sending it to the full House for a vote expected Wednesday.
The Rules Committee debate was filled with objections from both the left and right. Yet, in a notable development, conservative Kentucky Republican Rep.
Thomas Massie said he would vote in favor of advancing the bill to the House floor, almost ensuring it would clear the first hurdle.
Quick approval by both the House and Senate would ensure government checks will continue to go out to Social Security recipients, veterans and others, and prevent financial upheaval worldwide by allowing the Treasury to keep paying U.S. debts. The deal would restrict spending over the next two years, but it includes environmentalpolicy changes and expanded work requirements for some older food-aid recipients.
The Republican speaker said he would be talking with lawmakers in the evening as they return to Washington from the long Memorial Day weekend ahead of crucial votes.
“This is just the first step,” McCarthy said of his agreement with Biden.
With few lawmakers expected to be fully satisfied, Biden, a Democrat, and McCarthy, a Republican, are counting on pulling majority support from the political center, a rarity in divided Washington, to prevent a federal default. Some 218 votes are needed for passage in the 435member House.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said it was up to McCarthy to turn out votes from some two-thirds of the Republican majority, a high bar that the speaker might not be able to reach. Still, Jeffries said the Democrats would do their part to avoid failure.
“It is my expectation that House Republicans would keep their promise and deliver at least 150 votes as it relates to an agreement that they themselves negotiated,” Jeffries said. “Democrats will make sure that the country does not default.”
McCarthy could expect no help from the right.
“This deal fails, fails completely, and that’s why these members and others will be absolutely opposed to the deal,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said, flanked by others outside the Capitol. “We will do everything in our power to stop it.”
Ominously, the conservatives warned of potentially trying to oust McCarthy over the compromise.
“There’s going to be a reckoning,” said Texas
Rep. Chip Roy.
Liberal Democrats decried the new work requirements for older Americans, those 50-54, in the foodaid program. And some Democratic lawmakers were leading an effort against a surprise provision to greenlight a controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline natural-gas project through Appalachia.
Overall, the package is a tradeoff that would impose some federal spending reductions for the next two years along with a suspension of the debt limit into January 2025, pushing the volatile political issue past the next presidential election. Raising the debt limit, now $31.4 trillion, would allow Treasury to continue borrowing to pay the nation’s already incurred bills.
All told, the package would hold spending essentially flat for the coming year, while allowing increases for military and veterans accounts. It would cap growth at 1% for 2025.