One day after reaching an agreement in principle with President Biden to raise the debt limit, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his leadership team began a sellout speech Sunday to bring together Republicans around a compromise that was drawing intense resistance from the far right.
To get the legislation passed by a fractious and deeply divided Congress, McCarthy and top Democratic leaders must build a coalition of Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate willing to back it. Members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus have already declared war on the plan, which they say fails to impose significant spending cuts, and warned they would seek to block it.
So, after spending nights and nights over the past few days in feverish negotiations to get the deal done, proponents have focused their energies on ensuring it can pass in time to avoid default. now screened on June 5.
“This is the most conservative spending package in my service in Congress, and this is my 10th term,” Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, a North Carolina Republican and a senior member of McCarthy’s negotiating team, said at a conference Press at the Capitol. He hill on Sunday morning.
House Republicans circulated a one-page memo with 10 talking points about the conservative benefits of the deal, which was still being finalized and written into legislation on Sunday, hours before it was expected to be released. The GOP memo claimed the plan would cap government spending at 1 percent a year for six years, though the measure is only binding for two years, noting that it would impose stricter work requirements for Americans receiving government benefits. , would cut $400 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for global healthcare funding and eliminate funding to hire new IRS agents in 2023.
“He doesn’t get everything that everybody wanted,” McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill. “But, in a divided government, that’s where we end up. I think it’s a very positive bill.”
Biden told reporters that he was confident the deal would make it to his desk and that he would speak with McCarthy on Sunday afternoon “to make sure all the T’s are crossed and all the I’s are dotted.”
“I think we’re in good shape,” the president said. Asked what sticking points remained, he said: “None.”
Still, the deal, which would raise the debt ceiling for two years while cutting and limiting some federal programs over the same period, faced harsh criticism from both political parties.
“Terrible policy, absolutely terrible policy,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” referring to work requirements for food stamps and other public benefit programs. “I told the president directly when he called me last week on Wednesday that this is telling the poor and people in need that we don’t trust them.”
Ms Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she wanted to read the bill before deciding whether to support it.
Some on the right had already ruled out doing so before seeing the details.
“No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote,” Rep. Bob Good, Republican of Virginia and a member of the House Freedom Caucus, wrote on Twitter. Rep. Dan Bishop, a North Carolina Republican, posted his reaction to the deal news: a vomit emoji.
Russell T. Vought, the influential former budget director to President Trump who now runs the Center for Renewing America, encouraged right-wing Republicans to use their seats on the House Rules Committee, which McCarthy gave them as he strove to win their votes to become a speaker: to block the deal. “Conservatives should fight it with all their might,” he said.
Some Republicans in the Senate, who under Senate rules have more tools to delay consideration of the legislation, also took up arms.
“No real cuts to see here,” Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said on Twitter. “The Conservatives have sold out once again!”
“With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?” asked Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, who has vowed to delay the debt limit deal.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, was also critical, though for a very different reason. He called the deal too stingy and demanded stronger military funding, particularly for the Navy.
“I’m not going to make a deal that marginally reduces the number of IRS agents going forward at the expense of sinking the Navy,” Graham said on “Fox News Sunday.”
But McCarthy argued that the Republican critics were a small faction.
“More than 95 percent of everyone at the conference was very excited,” said McCarthy, who briefed Republicans on the deal Saturday night on Fox. “Think about this: We were finally able to cut spending. We are the first Congress to vote to cut spending year after year.”
The deal would essentially freeze federal spending that was set to grow, excluding military and veterans programs.
Rep. Dusty Johnson, a South Dakota Republican and a McCarthy ally, said House Republicans would overwhelmingly support the debt deal. He downplayed the right-wing revolt, claiming that the leaders never expected certain members of the House Freedom Caucus to vote for it.
“When you say conservatives have concerns, they’re actually the most colorful conservatives,” Johnson said on “State of the Union,” noting that some Republicans even voted against a more conservative proposal to raise the debt ceiling. “Some of those guys you mentioned didn’t vote for the thing when it was kind of a Republican wish list.”
Still, it was clear that McCarthy would need the votes of the Democrats to pass the measure in the House, and it may not be easy to get them, especially from the left wing of the House.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said he was undecided on how to vote but expressed anger over the negotiations, which he likened to hostage-taking by Republicans.
“None of the things in the bill are Democratic priorities,” Himes said on Fox. Himes said the legislation is “not going to make any Democrat happy.”
“But it’s a small enough bill that, in the service of not destroying the economy this week, it can get Democratic votes,” he said.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Minority Leader, said McCarthy and Biden would speak again Sunday afternoon before the Biden administration briefed the House Democratic Caucus.
“I hope there will be Democratic support once we have the ability to receive a full report from the White House,” Jeffries said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
But it was clear to him that he did not like the position the Democrats were in.
“We have to, of course, avoid a market crash. We have to avoid sinking the economy. We have to avoid a default,” Jeffries said. “The reason we were in this situation from the beginning is that the extreme MAGA Republicans became determined that they were going to use the possibility of default to hold the economy and ordinary Americans hostage.”
