House OKS bipartisan debt-limit deal; Greene votes in favor
The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a deal to suspend the debt limit late Wednesday, reducing the risk of a potentially disastrous default.
The legislation must still clear the Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden before the government runs out of money to pay its bills, which could happen as early as Monday.
The House approved the bill, which is a product of weekslong negotiations between Biden and House Speaker Kevin Mccarthy, Rcalif., by a 314-117 vote after 9 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday. The legislation, which will cap some nondefense spending and suspend the debt for two years, will cut approximately $1.5 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Northwest Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-rome, was among those voting in favor of the bill.
“I agree with my conservative friends in the Freedom Caucus on some of the flaws in the Fiscal Responsibility Act and I’ve never wanted to raise the debt ceiling on debt that I never voted to create,” she tweeted, “but I came to Washington to make changes and this bill actually provides a tool... that gives us a chance to make those fiscal changes.”
The bill now heads to the Senate, where it has support from leadership in both parties and is expected to pass as early as Thursday.
Biden and Mccarthy’s compromise allowed the federal government to dodge a crisis, and was a political victory for both men. The president reinforced his brand as a bipartisan dealmaker, and the speaker forced Biden to bargain after he refused to do so for weeks.
Both leaders won something for their parties. Republicans, who had criticized Biden’s repeated extension of a Trumpera pause of federal student loan payments, ensured that the president will not unilaterally extend that pause beyond the end of August. The deal also included another top GOP goal: a $20 billion cut from the $80 billion in new funding Democrats had sent to the IRS as part of an effort to rein in wealthy tax cheats.
Democrats secured a suspension of the debt ceiling, ensuring that Biden, a presidential hopeful, will not face this politically risky situation while he’s running for his final term. In a surprise twist, they also won an increase to food-stamp funding: Although new work requirements will apply to some recipients, new exceptions for homeless people, certain former foster children and veterans, will result in net increases in enrollment in the program, the Congressional Budget Office estimated this week.
But the deal left bitter feelings on both sides, and prompted warnings of future trouble.
Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, a member of the archconservative Freedom Caucus, which tried and failed Tuesday to scuttle the bill, suggested that Republicans should try to boot Mccarthy from the speakership over the debt limit bargain. Republicans’ majority in the house is narrow, and Mccarthy only secured the speakership on a historic 15th vote in January by making concessions to hard-line Republicans that make it easier to remove him from power.
In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Buck said that Mccarthy further soured his relationship with the Republican conference by relying on Democratic votes to pass a procedural rule ahead of the final vote.