The United States House of Representatives narrowly approved yesterday, April 26, the bill to increase the debt ceiling of 31.4 trillion dollars, challenging US President Joe Biden by including radical spending cuts for the next decade.
The largely partisan 217-215 vote marked a victory for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican who hopes to lure Biden into spending cut talks even as the White House and congressional Democrats insist in an unconditional debt limit increase.
The Treasury Department could run out of ways to pay its bills in a matter of weeks if Congress doesn’t act, as financial markets have given warning signs. An impasse, in 2011, led to a downgrade of the government’s credit rating, raising financing costs and hurting investments.
“We’ve done our job,” McCarthy told reporters victoriously just after the vote. “Republicans have increased the debt limit. Not you. Neither did Schumer,” McCarthy added, referring to the Senate’s top Democratic figure, Chuck Schumer.
McCarthy now faces a much more complex task in trying to negotiate a compromise with the Democrats without losing the support of some of his more conservative Republican colleagues.
McCarthy called on Biden to begin negotiations on a debt limit increase and spending cut bill and for the Senate to pass a House initiative or green light his own legislation.
The bill would increase Washington’s borrowing authority by $1.5 trillion or until March 31, whichever comes first, raising the specter of another round of negotiations during the 2024 presidential campaign.
The bill would reduce spending to 2022 levels and then limit growth to 1% a year, repeal some tax incentives for renewable energy and tighten labor requirements for some anti-poverty programs.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, asserted that Biden will not approve such cuts.
President Biden will never force the middle class and working families to bear the burden of tax cuts for the very rich, as this bill does,” he said in a statement. “The president made it clear that this bill has no chance of becoming law!” he warned.
Schumer told reporters that the House bill was “dead” by the time it reached the Senate and that the Republican measure would only “get us dangerously close” to a historic US debt default that would rock markets and economies in the United States. everyone.
Yesterday morning, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise predicted in an interview that the passage of the Republican debt limit bill would change the entire dynamic and put pressure on Democrats to participate. in negotiations.
Republicans were quick to praise McCarthy’s victory, which had been in doubt until the last moment.
“Now it shows that we can govern even with a five-member majority, and there’s been so much criticism that we couldn’t do this… We show the country that we can govern,” Rep. Michael McCaul said of the debt ceiling vote. .
Throughout the bill’s debate, Republicans labeled Democrats “free spenders of taxpayers’ money,” which they say pushed the national debt into a danger zone.
