Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, President Joe Biden told reporters that he feels “very good” about the debt limit bill he brokered with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the weekend to avert a first-ever U.S. default.
“I feel very good about it,” the president said. “I’ve spoken with a number of the members … I spoke to a whole bunch of people. And it feels good. We’ll see when the vote starts.”
The president’s optimism, and McCarthy’s narrow Republican majority, will face its first test on Tuesday as the powerful House Rules Committee will consider the 99-page bill, which, among other things, imposes spending caps for the next two years in exchange for a two-year suspension of the debt ceiling, which would allow the Treasury to pay the country’s bills and stave off default.
Should the House Rules panel support the bill favorably, it will clear the way for the full chamber to vote on the bill Wednesday, sending it to the Senate ahead of June 5, the date that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen estimates the U.S. could default.
But some far-right Republican members of the panel have spoken out against the bill, potentially complicating the timeline for passage.
Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, have slammed the bill in recent days. Norman called the bill “insanity” in a Twitter post over the weekend.
“A $4T debt ceiling increase with virtually no cuts is not what we agreed to,” Norman wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “Not gonna vote to bankrupt our country. The American people deserve better.”
Roy, on the other hand, called the bill a “turd-sandwich” and said it’s “not a good deal.”
All eyes will likely be on Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a conservative holdout who has not yet definitively stated which way he will vote. His support would give Republicans enough votes to advance the bill to the full House.
McCarthy said Tuesday he will be sitting down and talking with lawmakers as they return to Washington from the long Memorial Day weekend.
“This is just the first step,” the California Republican said of his agreement with Biden.
In an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” he sought to shore up support amid rising opposition from conservatives in his party. Unhelpfully for Biden, he said of the Democrats, “There’s nothing in the bill for them.”
Norman and Roy are also both members of the House Freedom Caucus; lawmakers in the far-right group held a press conference Tuesday about the bill.
Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy speaks at a press conference outside the United States Capitol Building with fellow members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. (Spectrum News / Cassie Semyon)
Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, the chairman of the HFC, said that the bill “totally fails to deliver” and pledged that the gathered lawmakers are “absolutely opposed” to the measure and “will do everything in our power to stop it.”
“Not one Republican should vote for this deal, it is a bad deal,” Roy said at the press conference, adding: “We will continue to fight it today, tomorrow, and no matter what happens, there’s going to be a reckoning about what just occurred, unless we stop this bill by tomorrow.”
Several caucus members have already spoken out against the bill, including Florida Reps. Byron Donalds and Anna Paulina Luna, Virginia Rep. Bob Good, North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop and Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert.
“No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote,” Good wrote on Twitter.
“The debt ceiling deal is classic Washington DC swamp garbage,” Boebert said in a Twitter post. “This Congress promised to be different. Supporting this deal is stabbing the American people directly in the back.”
“After I heard about the debt ceiling deal, I was a NO,” Donalds wrote on Twitter. “After reading the debt ceiling deal, I am absolutely NO!!”
All told, at least 18 Republicans have publicly said they will not support the bill, according to a tally from Spectrum News, including South Carolina’s Nancy Mace.
“Washington is broken,” Mace wrote on Twitter Tuesday, before lobbing an insult at President Biden.
“Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can’t find his pants,” she wrote in a Twitter post. “I’m voting NO on the debt ceiling debacle because playing the DC game isn’t worth selling out our kids and grandkids.”
With that many defections in a narrow majority, McCarthy will have to rely on the support of House Democrats to pass the bill – potentially as much as half of the minority conference.
Progressive lawmakers were unable to stop new work requirements for people 50 to 54 who receive government food assistance and are otherwise able-bodied without dependents. The Republicans demanded the bolstered work requirements as part of the deal, but some say the changes to the food stamp program are not enough.
The Republicans were also pushing to beef up work requirements for health care and other aid; Biden refused to go along on those.
Questions are also being raised about an unexpected provision that essentially gives congressional approval to the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas project important to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., that many Democrats and others oppose.
“I’m voting NO on the $4T of additional debt,” Florida Rep. Luna wrote on Twitter. “This bill is not good for ANY American. It only helps out special interests…oh yeah, and Joe Manchin’s project.”
Manchin, for his part, told West Virginia Metro News’ Hoppy Kercheval on Tuesday that he believes the bill will “absolutely” pass in bipartisan fashion.
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said in a statement that he was “extremely disappointed” by the inclusion of the pipeline approval and would file an amendment to try and remove it from the final bill.
Another Senate lawmaker, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, said he will push for an amendment to increase defense spending in the measure: “I will use all powers available to me in the Senate to have amendment votes to undo this catastrophe for defense.”
“I support raising the debt limit for 90 days to give us a chance to correct this disaster for defense,” he wrote on Twitter, adding: “Have total disgust for political leaders’ decision to make it remotely possible to gut our national security apparatus at a time of great peril. Take this absurd idea off the table.”
But with just days to go until the default deadline, changes might not be possible. A default would almost certainly crush the U.S. economy and spill over around the globe, as the world’s reliance on the stability of the American dollar and the country’s leadership fall into question.
In a statement of support on Tuesday, the Biden administration underscored the importance of quickly advancing the bill.
“A default could have catastrophic impacts on every single part of this country,” the statement reads. “It could lead to an economic recession, devastate retirement accounts, and cost our Nation millions of jobs.”
“H.R. 3746 is an important step forward that protects key Administration priorities and legislative accomplishments,” the statement continues. “It would suspend the debt limit until January 2025, fund discretionary programs at the same levels as Fiscal Year 2023, and fully fund veterans’ health care and our obligations under the historic PACT Act. The bill would protect bedrock programs that seniors and working families rely on including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And, the bill would protect and accelerate implementation of the historic clean energy and environmental justice investments in the Inflation Reduction Act.”
The House aims to vote Wednesday and send the bill to the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are working for a quick passage by the end of the week, ahead of Monday’s deadline.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
