McCarthy works to shore up votes to prevent default

President, house speaker counting on political centre for support

Under fire from conservatives, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy worked strenuously Tuesday to sell fellow Republicans on the debt ceiling and budget deal he negotiated with President Joe Biden and win approval in time to avert a potentially disastrous U.S. default.

Leaders of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus lambasted the compromise as falling well short of the spending cuts they demand, and they vowed to try to halt passage by Congress. A much larger conservative faction, the Republican Study committee, declined to take a position, leaving McCarthy hunting votes.

The House rules committee voted 7-6 Tuesday to advance a bill dealing with the federal debt ceiling to the full House, with two Republicans joining Democrats to oppose.

The full House is expected to vote Wednesday.

With tough days ahead, the speaker urged skeptical GOP colleagues to “look at where the victories are.” Unhelpfully for Biden, he said of the Democrats on Fox and Friends, “There’s nothing in the bill for them.”

In one late development, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the spending restrictions in the package would reduce deficits by $1.5 trillion (U.S.) over the decade, a top goal for the Republicans trying to curb the debt load.

But in a surprise that could further erode Republican support, the GOP’s drive to impose work requirements on older Americans receiving food stamps ends up boosting spending by $2.1 billion over the time period. That’s because the final deal exempted veterans and homeless people, expanding the food stamp rolls by some 78,000 people monthly, the CBO said.

McCarthy brushed past questions about the mounting opposition, saying “everybody is elected” to have their own vote.

The deal as detailed in the 99page bill would restrict spending over the next two years, but it includes environmental policy changes and expanded work requirements for some older food aid recipients that Democrats strongly oppose.

Biden was speaking directly to lawmakers, making more than 100 one-on-one calls, the White House said. Top administration officials are heading to Capitol Hill to brief Democrats privately ahead of Wednesday’s planned vote.

With few lawmakers expected to be fully satisfied, Biden and McCarthy are counting on pulling majority support from the political centre, a rarity in divided Washington, to prevent a federal default. Some 218 votes are needed for passage in the 435-member House.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said it was up to McCarthy to turn out votes from some two-thirds of the Republican majority, a high bar the speaker may not be able to reach. Still, Jeffries said the Democrats would do their part to avoid failure.

“It is my expectation that House Republicans would keep their promise and deliver at least 150 votes as it relates to an agreement that they themselves negotiated,” Jeffries said. “Democrats will make sure that the country does not default.”

McCarthy could expect no help from the far right.

“This deal fails, fails completely, and that’s why these members and others will be absolutely opposed to the deal,” Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the chair of the Freedom Caucus, said, flanked by others outside the Capitol. “We will do everything in our power to stop it.”

Ominously, the conservatives warned of potentially trying to oust McCarthy over the compromise. “There’s going to be a reckoning,” said Rep. Chip Roy of Texas.

Despite the late-night meeting at the Capitol, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace said after the “healthy debate” she was still a no.

Liberal Democrats decried the new work requirements for older Americans, those 50-54, in the food aid program. And some Democratic lawmakers were leading an effort against a surprise provision to greenlight a controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline natural gas project through Appalachia.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, of Washington, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she appreciated that Biden was able to minimize the “extreme demands” Republicans made on spending, but she raised serious concerns about the food stamps and other environmental policy changes.

She also had this warning for McCarthy: “He got us here and it’s on him to deliver the votes.”

Wall Street was taking a waitand-see approach. Stock prices were mixed in Tuesday’s trading. U.S. markets had been closed when the deal was struck over the weekend.

Overall, the package is a tradeoff that would impose some federal spending reductions for the next two years along with a suspension of the debt limit into January 2025, pushing the volatile political issue past the next presidential election. Raising the debt limit, now $31.4 trillion, would allow Treasury to continue borrowing to pay the country’s already incurred bills.

All told, it would hold spending essentially flat for the coming year, while allowing increases for military and veterans accounts. It would cap growth at one per cent for 2025.

Raising the debt limit, now $31.4 trillion (U.S.), would allow Treasury to continue borrowing to pay the country’s already incurred bills