{"id":12661,"date":"2023-05-31T05:51:45","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T10:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=12661"},"modified":"2023-05-31T05:51:47","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T10:51:47","slug":"biden-mccarthy-debt-ceiling-deal-approved-by-key-committee-ahead-of-house-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=12661","title":{"rendered":"Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling deal approved by key committee ahead of House vote"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A major debt ceiling bill<\/a> negotiated by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy passed its first test Tuesday, gaining approval from the Republican-led House Rules Committee and setting up a vote Wednesday in the full chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vote was 7 to 6, with two Republicans \u2014 Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas \u2014 and all four Democrats voting no. It sends the bill to the House floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 99-page Fiscal Responsibility Act<\/a>, which faces heavy criticism from some GOP hard-liners<\/a>, will need a majority of the House to pass. It is sure to rely on some Democratic votes in the narrowly divided chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the bill is passed by the House, it would then need to be approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate before the Treasury Department\u2019s deadline of Monday to avert a calamitous default.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., one of three ultraconservatives on the Rules Committee, announced earlier that he planned to vote yes, which all but assured passage through the panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are things to dislike and things to like about this bill,\u201d Massie said. \u201cWhen people want to express their ideology, the floor of the House on the actual final passage of the bill is the place to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norman described the bill as “smoke and mirrors,” arguing that Republicans \u201cshould have walked away\u201d from the table after they passed their party-line debt limit legislation<\/a> and forced Democrats to either swallow it or accept default.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some progressive Democrats have raised their own concerns about the bill ahead of Wednesday’s vote. Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the panel, criticized the bill\u2019s new paperwork requirements for those who get benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, worrying it would \u201cmake poor people poorer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody here wants to avoid a catastrophic default on our debt,\u201d McGovern said, expressing hope that Congress could do it \u201cwithout increasing hunger\u201d in the U.S. \u201cWe don\u2019t hold the Defense Department accountable for cost overruns. Yet we are doubling down on poor people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill would extend the debt limit for two years<\/a> alongside modest federal spending cuts and a series of policy provisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would cap spending for the next two years to set up the appropriations process. It includes conservative policy measures that would rescind about $28 billion in unspent Covid relief funds, eliminate $1.4 billion in IRS funding and shift about $20 billion of the $80 billion the agency got through the Inflation Reduction Act to nondefense funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legislation would restart federal student loan payments after a lengthy \u201cpause\u201d that began at the start of the pandemic. It would add work requirements to get SNAP and TANF benefits for people up to 55 years old (the current threshold is 50), with carve-outs for veterans and homeless people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, it would overhaul the National Environmental Policy Act to streamline permits for projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Massie praised a part of the bill in his Rules Committee remarks: its inclusion of a measure he sponsored to require the government to cut 1% of spending across the board if Congress doesn\u2019t pass all 12 appropriations bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Roy said the bill was “effectively a spending freeze” that would do little to change the long-term trajectory of the federal budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., the chair of the center-right Main Street Caucus, told reporters that he predicts the bill will \u201cabsolutely pass\u201d after he spoke with \u201cdozens of members.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., touted new Congressional Budget Office estimates provided to some in the Republican leadership that haven\u2019t been made public, two GOP sources said. The estimates say the Biden-McCarthy bill would cut $2.1 trillion in spending \u2014 slightly more than what Republicans originally projected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bice said the bill will pass with support from both parties: \u201cWe\u2019re going to get there. There\u2019s going to be bipartisan support on this legislation. The president is supporting it. I think that we\u2019re in a really good place. Spending cuts are what we asked for; no new taxes are what we asked for; no clean debt ceiling is what we asked for. And that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, senior White House staff members worked the phones over the weekend to sell the deal to moderate and progressive Democrats, including holding briefings in small groups and one-on-one calls to respond to any technical questions from lawmakers and their staff members, a White House official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A major debt ceiling bill negotiated by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy passed its first test Tuesday, gaining approval from the Republican-led House Rules Committee and setting up a vote Wednesday in the full chamber. The vote was 7 to 6, with two Republicans \u2014 Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":12663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7661],"class_list":["post-12661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-bidenmccarthy-house-of-representatives-termdebtagreement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12664,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12661\/revisions\/12664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}