After days of political wrangling, House Republicans voted to approve their huge debt limit.
Passed 217 to 215, the bill will raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion in exchange for saving $4.5 trillion by capping spending in 2024 to fiscal year 2022 levels. also limit growth to 1 percent per year.
After cutting spending to FY 2022 levels, which would be a $131 billion reduction from current levels, Invoice of 320 pages also limits on total discretionary spending or non-defense discretionary spending.
By passing the Limit, Save, Grow Act, Speaker McCarthy hopes to throw the ball into President Biden’s court to spark talks, even as the White House insists it will not negotiate the debt ceiling.
The bill is not expected to go anywhere in the Senate, and Biden has already pledged to veto the bill.
But Republicans insist that passing a party line bill means they have done their duty.
“We did our job,” McCarthy told reporters after the bill passed. “The president said, ‘Oh, I’m not going to talk to him until he presents a plan,’ we not only have a plan, we’ve approved it.”
Chuck Schumer has a bill. Pick it up, pass it on — if you don’t like it, tell us what you don’t like,” Whip Tom Emmer told reporters.
The US is expected to hit the ceiling on Thursday, forcing the Treasury Department to take “extraordinary measures” so the government can continue paying bills as Congress negotiates to try to prevent an economic collapse
The House GOP whip team spent the weekend calling Republican holdouts to convince them to vote for their debt ceiling
Representatives Andy Biggs, Ariz., Tim Burchett, Tenn, Ken Buck, Colo., and Matt Gaetz, Fla., all voted against their Republican colleagues on the bill.
Rep. George Santos, NY, who previously said he would vote no on the bill, cast the final vote approving the bill, and the Republican side of the room erupted in applause.
With the possibility of a deadline that could lead to devastating defaults that could rattle fast-approaching markets around the world, neither McCarthy nor Biden are showing any sign of blinking with their demands — for Republicans, they’re austerity in exchange for allowing that the nation is borrowing an additional $31.4 trillion. For the Democrats, it is a pure increase in the debt ceiling.
The deadline to hit the country’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit is still unknown, and is expected to land sometime between June and September.
McCarthy told reporters late on Wednesday that he has had no contact with the White House about meeting.
Asked how he would wrangle his caucus to pass a debt ceiling bill that could actually pass the Democrat-led Senate, he objected.
“With the president still not negotiating, I’m sure one side has taken care of the debt ceiling. We raised the debt ceiling so that no one has to worry about whether the debt ceiling will be lifted,” the speaker said. ‘We did. The Democrats don’t. The president wants to ensure that the debt ceiling is lifted, sign this bill.”
“Other bills we’ve passed say you’re going to veto, at the end of the day you’re probably going to sign this one,” McCarthy said.
Biden said earlier Wednesday he was “happy” to meet McCarthy as long as he didn’t use the impending debt limit as a bludgeon for negotiations.
“I’m happy to meet McCarthy, but not on whether or not to extend the debt limit. That is non-negotiable,” Biden said.
The proposal spans a wide range of priorities — it would withdraw unused Covid-19 funds and undo some Biden priorities — ban student loan forgiveness and scrap some green tax credits, institute stricter job requirements for social programs. Republicans also want to include their sprawling energy package, the House-approved HR 1, and the rule-cutting REINS bill.
After the generally receptive Republicans from farmland districts threatened to vote against provisions of the bill that eliminated ethanol subsidies, those tax cuts were reinstated.
Work requirements for benefits like SNAP and TANF also tightened after conservative hardliners wanted them to start earlier – now they will start in 2024 instead of 2025.