Washington — A Compromise for a Raise debt ceiling It passed its first major test on Tuesday night at the House Rules Committee, advancing to the House floor by a 7-6 vote despite two of the committee’s nine Republicans dissenting.
parliamentary vote on financial responsibility law According to the House provisional ballot schedule, it is scheduled for Wednesday around 8:30 p.m. ET.
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The late-stage endorsement of Republican Rep. Thomas Massey (Kentucky) paved the way for the bill’s approval by seven of the nine Republicans on the committee. The composition of the committee is heavily skewed to the party in the majority, 9-4, to ensure that the bill is not blocked by a minority dissident who sided with the minority.
Just before the commission passed the bill, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office made the following announcement: its evaluation Discuss the impact of this measure on federal debt and the budget deficit. The CBO estimates that if the bill is enacted and the “expenditures covered by the cap” are carried out as planned, “the budget deficit will be reduced by about $1.5 trillion” over the next 10 years.
The CBO “score” matched both parties’ expectations, but the added certainty provided by the numbers could help strengthen support for the bill in the House plenary session on Wednesday.
The bill is the product of an agreement struck by the Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and president Joe Biden It caps federal benchmark spending for two years in exchange for a Republican vote to raise the debt ceiling beyond next year’s election and into 2025.
The bill needs to pass the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate by Monday, but the U.S. is unlikely to have enough money to meet its debt obligations on Monday, the Treasury Department said. Predicting.
On Tuesday, more than 20 conservative Republican lawmakers announced they would oppose the compromise. They accused Mr. McCarthy of bowing to the White House in exchange for “cosmetic” policy adjustments rather than the promised change.
Some hardliners in the group lashed out at the deal on social media and at press conferences outside the Capitol.
Republican Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina said, “It’s not just that every Republican should vote against. It goes a little beyond that. This is a career-defining vote for every Republican.” said.
Several prominent conservative groups also voiced their opposition to the bill on Tuesday, saying it would be evaluated, or “scored,” by how Republicans voted for it. The libertarian-leaning group Freedom Works, the anti-tax group Growth Club, and the conservative Heritage Foundation all criticized the deal.
As the days went on, opposition to the bill by some of the McCarthy Party leadership turned into sharper criticism.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) speaks at a press conference for the House Liberals Against the Debt Limitation Agreement outside the Capitol on Monday, May 30, 2023.
Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call Inc. | Getty Images
Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the Rules Committee, told a news conference: “Rep. McCarthy should withdraw this bad bill. We should stop talking about this bill now.” said. “And whatever happens, what happened will surely pay off.”
Bishop told reporters that “no one could have done a worse job than anyone at the Republican convention” in negotiating the deal than McCarthy.
Roy and Bishop weren’t the only far-right conservatives to threaten to remove McCarthy as House Speaker if the debt-saving bill passes. However, it remains to be seen if they will carry out their threats. Under new rules this year, one Republican lawmaker can bring a no-confidence motion against McCarthy.
Some Democrats also worried about new food stamp labor requirements, reforms to make it easier to secure energy permits, and cuts to discretionary spending. But progressive leaders in the House failed to urge like-minded lawmakers to oppose the bill.
“Republicans haven’t been able to get big spending concessions,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, chair of the 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a call with reporters on Tuesday. rice field. “There is no meaningful debt reduction here… What do you mean?” [Republicans] It’s part of their extreme ideological priorities. ”
Jayapal acknowledged that the bill’s spending cap would require parliament to cut funding for some domestic programs. “When the time comes to create appropriation bills, we are going to have very difficult choices to make,” she said.
As of Tuesday, the Chinese Communist Party was still deciding whether to “take an official stance” on the bill, she said.
Messages from the White House were similarly subdued, focused on all Republican wishes that were not among Democrat priorities and left out of the bill.
“If there are people on either side who are a little bit unhappy, it’s usually a sign of a good compromise,” Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC.
“I think the macroeconomic impact of this deal is likely to be fairly minimal,” he said, adding that the deal is exactly what Biden had hoped would be a bill that could pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. I added that it was the content.
The Office of Management and Budget also released a formal policy statement on Tuesday, urging lawmakers to back it. invoicesaid it “reflected a bipartisan compromise to avoid a first-ever default.”
