House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) walks after the caucus on Captiol Hill in Washington, April 26, 2023.
Tom Brenner | Reuters
USA — ONE Republican bill to increase the debt limit and cut government funding passed the House of Commons on Wednesday, after the 11th-hour changes won over a group of naysayers in the GOP caucus. .
The final score is 217-215. Four Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the bill signed by their party.
The vote was a win for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.. Revision bill.
The last-minute amendments include rescuing biofuels and ethanol tax credits, which were set to be phased out under the original bill. The prospect of losing the tax breaks angered a bloc of Republicans from Iowa and surrounding states, who threatened to rescind the bill unless McCarthy agreed to maintain the tax breaks, which he had already given him. do.
Another bloc of conservatives asked McCarthy to amend the bill to speed the implementation of new work requirements for adults receiving food stamps or Medicaid benefits. McCarthy also agreed to that request.
With a margin of just four Republican votes on the bill walk along the party roadMcCarthy could not afford to lose the support of both blocs.
The amendments, however, ranked some ordinary members of the GOP caucus, because they came after McCarthy banned members from making their own amendments and insisted the bill was in the form original is final and not for discussion.
The Limits, Thrifts, and Growth Act has little or no chance of becoming law, which may help explain why Republicans are ultimately willing to skip the behind-the-scenes deals. McCarthy’s last minute.
Instead of looking at the rules in invoice 320 pages In essence, as future legislation, House Republicans see the plan as a symbolic opening bid in the negotiations McCarthy will hold with the President. Joe Biden later this year on federal funding and debt limits.
“There has been a lot of hard work focused on the best way to start this negotiation,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters Wednesday.
However, the White House sees things very differently.
“This bill is a reckless attempt to obtain extreme concessions as a condition for the United States to simply pay the bills it has already incurred,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement. in a formal notice to the House of Representatives on Tuesday that Biden would veto the GOP debt limit bill if it ever reached his desk.
“The President has made it clear that he will not accept such hostage-taking efforts. House Republicans must eliminate the possibility of default and settle the debt limit without a request. and conditions,” the White House said.
While the White House and Republicans in Congress remain miles apart, the clock is ticking on America’s ability to pay off its massive debt and keep running the federal government.
Without congressional approval of the bill to raise the debt limit or suspend it, the United States could face an unthinkable prospect of default.
Several new reports this week suggest that a larger-than-expected reduction in federal tax receipts this year could hasten the arrival of the so-called X-date. This is the expected date the Treasury Department will exhaust all emergency measures it is taking to prevent a federal default.
A note from Goldman Sachs forecast “the debt limit will be reduced by the end of July,” as long as federal tax receipts are down only 30% from last year. However, if federal revenue drops 35%, date x could move to “early June”.
