WASHINGTON (AP) — In defending itself against a U.S. default, the Senate gave final approval Thursday night to a debt ceiling package and budget cutsworking into the night to finish the paper on the bipartisan agreement and send it to the president Joe Bidendesk to become law before the fast approaching deadline.
The compromise package negotiated between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy leaves neither republicans neither democrats fully satisfied with the result. But the result, after weeks of hard-fought budget negotiations, sidesteps the volatile debt ceiling issue that risked revolutionizing the American and world economy until 2025 after the next presidential election.
The passage in the Senate in a bipartisan vote, 63-36, mirrored the overwhelming House tally the day before, relying on centrists in both parties to get the Biden-McCarthy package through.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the bill’s passage means “America can breathe a sigh of relief.”
He said: “We are avoiding default.”
Swift action was vital if Washington hoped to meet deadline next monday, when the Treasury has said the US will start running out of cash to pay its bills, risking a devastating default. Raising the nation’s debt limit, now $31.4 trillion, would ensure that the Treasury could borrow to pay off US debts already owed.
In the end, the debt ceiling showdown was a high-stakes family battle in Congress, a fight taken on by McCarthy and driven by a far-right Republican majority in the House that confronted the Democratic president with a new era of divided government. in washington.
Rejecting a once routine vote to allow the nation’s debt limit to be lifted without compromise, McCarthy brought the Biden White House to the negotiating table to reach an agreement that would force spending cuts to curb the nation’s deficits.
In general, the 99 page bill restricts spending for the next two years, suspends the debt ceiling until January 2025, and changes some policies, including imposing new work requirements for older Americans receiving food aid and giving the green light to an Appalachian natural gas line which many Democrats oppose.
Bolster funding for defense and veterans, cut new money for agents of the Internal Revenue Service and rejects Biden’s call to roll back Trump-era tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy to help cover the nation’s deficits. It imposes automatic 1% cuts if Congress does not pass its annual spending bills.
After the House overwhelmingly passed the package Wednesday night, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he, too, wanted to waste no time making sure it became law.
Touting his budget cuts, McConnell said Thursday: “The Senate has an opportunity to make that important progress a reality.”
Having largely sat on the sidelines for much of the Biden-McCarthy negotiations, several senators insisted on debating their ideas for reshaping the package. But making any changes at this stage would surely derail the compromise, and none were approved.
Instead, senators dragged themselves into late-night rounds of voting to reject the various amendments, while making their preferences clear. Conservative Republican senators wanted to include more spending cuts, while Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia sought to scrap approval of the Mountain Valley pipeline.
The power pipeline is important to Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., and he has defended the development his state is undergoing, saying the country cannot function without the power of gas, coal, wind and all sources of energy. available.
But, in offering an amendment to remove the pipeline from the package, Kaine argued that it would not be fair for Congress to intervene in a controversial project that he said would also cut through his state and pick up land in Appalachia that has been in families for generations. .
Defense hawks led by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have complained vigorously that military spending, while increased in the deal, was not enough to keep pace with inflation, particularly as they account for the additional spending that would you will need this summer to support Ukraine against the war. launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin’s invasion is a defining moment of the 21st century,” Graham argued from the plenary session of the Senate. “What the House did is wrong.”
They got an agreement from Schumer, which he read to the floor, stating that the debt ceiling deal “does nothing” to limit the Senate’s ability to pass other emergency national security supplemental funds, including for Ukraine, or for disaster relief and other matters. of national importance.
For weeks, negotiators worked late into the night to reach a deal with the White House, and for days, McCarthy worked to build support among skeptics.
Tensions had risen in the House the night before when far-right Republicans rejected the deal. Ominously, the Conservatives warned against trying to oust McCarthy over the issue.
But Biden and McCarthy formed a bipartisan coalition, with Democrats securing approval with a solid 314-117 vote. In all, 71 House Republicans broke with McCarthy to reject the deal.
“We did pretty good,” McCarthy, a California Republican, said afterwards.
As for the discontent of the Republicans who said that the spending restrictions didn’t go far enoughMcCarthy said it was just a “first step.”
The White House immediately turned its attention to the Senate, with its senior staff calling individual senators on the phone.
Democrats also had complaints, decrying new work requirements for older Americans, those ages 50 to 54, in the food aid program, changes to the landmark National Environmental Policy Act, and passage of the controversial natural gas project. Mountain Valley Pipeline that they argue is useless in fighting climate change.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the spending restrictions in the package would reduce deficits by $1.5 trillion over the decade, a top goal for Republicans trying to curb the debt burden.
However, in a surprise that complicated Republican support, the CBO said its campaign to impose work requirements for older Americans receiving food stamps it would end up increasing spending by $2.1 billion over the time period. That’s because the final agreement exempts veterans and the homeless, which expands food stamp rolls by 78,000 people each month, the CBO said.
AP White House correspondent Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
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