Get on your mark and get set for more drama!
Posted May 30, 2023 at 9:16pm
Debt limit deal clears key hurdle; more land mines await - Roll Call
Floor vote on rule is typically a party-line affair, but some in GOP may oppose
Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and President Joe Biden, who negotiated the package, appear likely to have the votes to pass the measure, despite rising anger from the GOP majority’s hard-right flank and some concerns on the left as well.
First, party leaders need to adopt the rule on the floor — a key test of how far conservative holdouts are willing to go to sink the bill. Since rule votes are typically along party lines, enough GOP defections could cause leadership to have to go back to the drawing board.
The Rules Committee has nine Republicans and four Democrats, but three of the GOP members are fiscal conservatives who could have derailed the entire process even before the rule hit the floor if they stuck together and voted against it in committee. One of the three, however, backed the rule during the panel's meeting Tuesday.
“I anticipate voting for this rule,” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said earlier in the Rules meeting. Massie won inclusion of his proposal to automatically cut current spending by 1 percent if full-year spending bills haven't been enacted by Jan. 1, 2024; backers say that's a major incentive for lawmakers to complete the appropriations process by then.
Defections from all three of the panel's conservatives who won Rules seats earlier this year — Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina are the other two — would have been enough to tank the Republican-backed rule in committee if all Democrats voted against it as would be typical.
Roy and Norman voted against the rule, which the committee approved on a 7-6 vote, with all Democrats opposed. Under the terms of the rule, no amendments to the bill would be allowed during floor debate.
The hard-right Freedom Caucus blasted the bill at a news conference Tuesday, saying it falls woefully short of the spending reductions needed to win their support.
“I had no idea that we would see a plan as ephemeral and as malodorous as this plan,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, a Freedom Caucus member. Norman said simply: “The best deal is no deal.”
Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., later on Tuesday declined to say whether members of his group as a whole would vote against the rule when it reaches the floor.
Another Freedom Caucus member, Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., gave a strong hint she might vote against the rule on the floor. She said the fact the package doesn't roll discretionary spending all the way back to fiscal 2022 levels as House Republicans demanded earlier this year is reason "in itself" to vote against the rule.
'Most conservative deal'
McCarthy told reporters Tuesday he was confident he had enough Republican votes to help carry the bill.
“It’s the most conservative deal we ever had” despite a divided government, McCarthy said.
McCarthy has stressed that the caps would ensure the government spends less discretionary money next fiscal year than it spends this year, while clawing back an estimated $28 billion in unspent pandemic aid and ending a pandemic-era pause on student loan repayments. He also took credit for toughened work requirements for certain recipients of food stamps and a cash assistance program for low-income households.
The Congressional Budget Office released its official estimate of the bill late Tuesday, finding that it would cut deficits by at least $1.5 trillion over a decade.
That figure could rise to $2.1 trillion if future Congresses adhere to the measure's proposed spending caps for fiscal years 2026 through 2029. But even that falls far short of the original House-passed package, which the CBO estimated would cut deficits by $4.8 trillion.
Conservative critics countered that the bill, combined with side deals, contained enough accounting gimmicks to ensure that spending would at best stay relatively flat.
Several other Republicans, apart from the Freedom Caucus, have also expressed their opposition. Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told Fox News that the modest increase for defense wouldn’t keep pace with inflation.
“That’s cutting ships while you have a massive military buildup from China,” Waltz said. “We can’t do this on the backs of our troops.”
But the preliminary math suggested that supporters would have enough votes to push the measure to passage.
One high-profile Freedom Caucus member, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said Tuesday she was "getting there" on the package. Even as she referred to the package as a "shit sandwich," Greene argued the alternative might be a clean debt limit increase that Democrats are able to jam through.
And while Republican votes alone would be insufficient in the narrowly divided House, given some GOP defections, the bill was likely to win support from a large swath of Democrats.
The leaders of the New Democrat Coalition, made up of about 100 self-described center-left members, announced its support for the bill Tuesday.
“At the end of the day, you've got to step up and do the right thing,” New Democrat Chair Ann McLane Kuster, D-N.H., told MSNBC. “You know, you can either be part of the solution or part of the problem, and our members are choosing to be part of the solution.”
Norman said later on Tuesday that he believed Democrats would offset GOP defections on the rule during floor debate.
Referring to a GOP conference meeting on the bill, Norman said McCarthy was "ecstatic in there," knowing he likely has the votes to send the measure to the Senate.
Senate gears up
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., formally endorsed the bill Tuesday and vowed to take it up in his chamber as soon as the House sends it to him.
“Senators must be prepared to act with urgency to send a final product to the president's desk before the June 5 deadline,” Schumer said, referring to the date when Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen projects the government will be unable to pay its bills without new borrowing authority.
And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., offered a strong endorsement of the bill, even as a few in his conference promised to fight it.
"We have a chance to start bringing Washington Democrats' reckless spending to heel,” McConnell said on the floor Tuesday. "Let's not pass up our shot."
One of the Senate conservatives opposed to the bill says he will slow down the process in that chamber unless he receives a commitment to vote on his amendment to swap in his alternative debt ceiling bill.
"If we get no amendments, we'll be here 'til next Tuesday," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said.
Paul's amendment would substitute the House bill's debt limit suspension to Jan. 1, 2025 — which could add up to $4 trillion in borrowing room — with a much slimmer $500 billion debt limit increase, forcing another debate later this year. His amendment would also cap spending at much lower levels.
Other Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have said they'll demand amendment votes. Graham, a defense hawk, takes issue with the military spending levels.
Paul seemed cognizant he wouldn't get the votes to adopt his amendment.
"I don't think there are 50 votes. I think about half of the Republican caucus will support mine. No Democrats will support it. But the American people need to know that's where we are," Paul said. "We're going to be $35 trillion in debt because both parties — look, Lindsey Graham's already said, 'Oh, this doesn't spend enough on the military. We need more for the military.' That's part of the problem. Big government Republicans and big government Democrats."
Paul M. Krawzak and Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.
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Far-right members threaten a 'reckoning' over McCarthy's debt limit deal
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, speaks during the House Freedom Caucus news conference to oppose the debt limit deal outside of the US Capitol on May 30, 2023. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
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.
"This deal fails — fails completely — and that's why these members and others will be absolutely opposed to the deal and we will do everything in our power to stop it," House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania said during a press conference with caucus members Tuesday afternoon.
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."
Roy argued there was a "breach" in the structure set up by House Republicans after the January vote to elect 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."
Under a rule McCarthy agreed to in January as a concession to his conservative critics, any one House member can offer a resolution to remove the House speaker.
The deal McCarthy and Biden reached in principal over the weekend would avoid a historic government debt default by raising the nation's debt ceiling for nearly two years.
The compromise bill, clocking in at 99 pages long, holds nondefense spending for fiscal year 2024 at roughly current levels and will raise it by 1% in 2025. It also sets spending caps for the federal budget, raises the age of food stamp recipients subject to work requirements and claws back funding for the Internal Revenue Service, among other things. But some conservatives in the House criticized the scale of the cuts, arguing they were not fully in line with an earlier partisan bill to raise the debt ceiling that House Republicans passed in April.
One after another, members of the Freedom Caucus at the press conference called on fellow Republicans to oppose the bill
The rules panel could also derail the deal
The House Rules Committee, the next stop for the legislation, convenes Tuesday afternoon. The panel includes nine Republicans and four Democrats and typically paves the way for bills drafted by the speaker to the House floor.
If three GOP members join with Democrats, they could derail the deal. Democratic members could also decide to support the legislation since President Biden sealed the debt deal.
Two members — Roy and South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman — belong to the Freedom Caucus.
Another conservative, Rep. Tom Massie, R-Ky., could join Roy and Norman in the Rules panel to push for amendments or block the bill.
A vote on the House floor could come Wednesday evening, after which point the Senate would take up the bill.
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... .*
Read more > NPR
List of Republicans voting no on the debt limit deal swells to at least 26
'Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can't find his pants': GOP Rep. Nancy Mace joins growing list of at least TWENTY-SIX defectors voting 'NO' on Kevin McCarthy's debt ceiling 'debacle'
, updated
- The debt limit deal suspends the debt ceiling until Jan. 1, 2025
- Republicans said the ceiling shouldn't be raised by more than $1.5 trillion and says the deal 'normalizes' high spending
- READ MORE: A full breakdown of deal to raise the debt limit: What Speaker gave up in package conservatives are calling a 'turd sandwich'
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace grew a swelling list of Republicans who are balking at the cost of the debt limit deal Speaker Kevin McCarthy cut with President Biden.
The debt limit deal includes $136 billion in budget cuts and suspends the debt ceiling until Jan. 1, 2025 - after the 2024 election.
Some of the opposed Republicans, who passed a bill last month - the Limit, Save, Grow Act - that would only raise the ceiling by $1.5 trillion, say the debt limit suspension goes beyond that is necessary and gives the Biden administration the ability to overspend for the next two years.
'Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can't find his pants. I'm voting NO on the debt ceiling debacle because playing the DC game isn't worth selling out our kids and grandkids,' Mace said in announcing her opposition to the deal Tuesday.
'This 'deal' normalizes record high spending started during the pandemic. It sets these historically high spending levels as the baseline for all future spending,' Mace sounded off on Twitter.
'After factoring in a small cut to discretionary spending over the next 2 yrs, we are still talking about ~$6T more or less in spending bc of large increases in spending elsewhere. In other words, it's a wash spending-wise.'
GOP no votes on debt limit deal so far
Scott Perry, Pa.
Josh Brecheen, Okla.
Nancy Mace, S.C.
Wesley Hunt, Texas
Ralph Norman, S.C.
Chip Roy, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Texas
Matt Rosendale, Mont.
Cory Mills, Fla.
Andy Biggs, Ariz.
Byron Donalds, Fla.
Andrew Clyde, Ga.
Ken Buck, Colo.
Keith Self, Texas
Bob Good, Va.
Lauren Boebert, Colo.
Matt Gaetz, Fla.
Dan Bishop, N.C.
Eli Crane, Ariz.
Mary Miller, Ill.
Mike Waltz, Fla.
Victoria Spartz, Ind.
Kat Cammack, Fla.
Russell Fry, S.C.
Mike Collins, Ga.
Andy Ogles, Tenn.
The deal also leaves non-defense discretionary spending flat in 2024 and allows for a one percent increase in 2025 - essentially amounting to cuts since inflation is not factored in.
Mace joins a list of at least 18 definite Republican no votes on the bill.
'After I heard about the debt ceiling deal, I was a NO. After reading the debt ceiling deal, I am absolutely NO!!' Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., wrote on Twitter.
'This 'deal' is insanity,' tweeted Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. 'A $4T debt ceiling increase with virtually no cuts is not what we agreed to. Not gonna vote to bankrupt our country. The American people deserve better.'
'I think it's a disaster!' tweeted Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.
McCarthy will have to rely on Democrat 'yes' votes to counteract the GOP nos. The New Democrat Coalition of nearly 100 members came out in support of the bill.
The speaker also has to be careful due to a new rule allowing just one member of either party to force a vote to remove him as speaker - known as the single person motion to vacate. Then, only a simple majority needs to vote to remove him.
The deal increases military spending in 2023 to line up with President Biden's budget request - $886 billion - and limits non-defense discretionary spending -- money that goes to things like law enforcement, foreign aid and scientific research -- to $705 billion.
In fiscal year 2024 those figures are allowed to raise only one percent to $895 billion and $711 billion.
Spending on things like veterans' health care also lines up with Biden's budget request.
The bill faces its first major test on Tuesday when the House Rules Committee must pass it to get it to the House floor. McCarthy placed three hardline conservatives on the panel as part of a deal to get his speakership.
Two have already said they would vote against the deal - Reps. Chip Roy and Ralph Norman, while one - Rep. Thomas Massie - has signaled he will allow the bill to move to the floor.
DAVID MARCUS: A $4 TRILLION spending splurge budget for what? To help pay for 85,260 more IRS snoopers. Ron's right - this contemptuous 'deal' will send America careening towards bankruptcy
It's not clear whether the four Democrats on the panel will vote to move the legislation, but Roy reminded McCarthy on Twitter he promised during the speaker's race not to move anything to the floor without at least seven of the nine GOP votes from Rules.
The bill is largely different from the party-line, House-passed Limit, Save Grow Act Republicans passed in April - which would have increased the debt limit by $1.5 trillion instead of suspending it and capped spending for 10 years rather than two.
After two years it switches to spending targets not bound by law.
Republicans did, however, claim a win in the deal's provisions that claw back $28 billion in unspent Covid relief and whittle down the $80 billion in additional funding Democrats gave the IRS last Congress. The bill cuts $1.4 billion in IRS funding and shifts $20 billion of the $80 billion to non-defense discretionary funding.
The bill does not undo Biden's student loan relief plan but stipulates that student loan payments, which have been on pause since the start of the pandemic, are to resume Aug. 29.
The bill also increases the age SNAP and TANF recipients are required to work from 50 to 55, with carveouts for veterans, homeless people and people who were children in foster care. The White House says these exemptions will leave roughly the same number of people eligible for nutrition assistance.
The bill also includes permitting reforms - overhauling the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to streamline permit timelines for renewable and non-renewable energy projects.
— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) May 30, 2023Washington is broken.
After reading the bill, twice, I’m voting NO on the debt ceiling debacle because playing the DC game isn’t worth selling out our kids and grandkids.
Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can’t find his pants.
Let’s dive in. (thread)
The bill also includes a direct win for Sen. Joe Manchin, approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline in West Virginia.
'This bill is not good for ANY American. It only helps out special interests…oh yeah, and Joe Manchin's project,' Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Texas, said in staking out opposition to the bill.
Republicans were not able to push through the deeper spending cuts and stricter work requirements they had wanted. They also wanted to repeal hundreds of billions in tax incentives for renewable energy projects Biden pushed through in the Inflation Reduction Act last Congress.
Democrats, meanwhile, wanted to raise taxes on corporations and high earners and allow Medicare to negotiate prices on more drugs, but those provisions too were left out of the bill.
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Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs Fundraise Off Blocking McCarthy Speakership
Anti-McCarthy Republicans Are Raising Money Off Stonewalling Congress
It shouldn't be surprising that Andy Biggs and Matt Gaetz are peppering their supporters with emails as they block the House from commencing business
It’s a stunt, of course.
The 20 or so Republicans who have opposed Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the speakership — and thus prevented the House of Representatives from swearing in its members and beginning its business — have claimed they’re doing so in the name of draining the swamp. They’ve put forth no viable alternative, nor have they been swayed by any of the concessions McCarthy had made in an effort to woo them. They have, however, received plenty of press for their efforts.
Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Matt Gaetz
(R-Fla.), two of the staunchest opponents of McCarthy’s bid for the
speakership, are now trying to cash in on all the attention. “We BLOCKED
Kevin McCarthy from becoming Speaker of the House,” Biggs wrote in an
email. “But now, we conservatives must lead the fight to get the
leadership we deserve.”. . .
Republicans aren’t the only ones trying to parlay the party’s chaos
into financial support. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who has received
the most votes in every speakership ballot thus far, has been sending
out emails, too.
“Republicans are incapable of governing,” Jeffries wrote. “And they’re putting politics over the American people.”
Read more > Rolling Stone
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