'They have to worry': Debt ceiling deal faces pushback from the left and right

WASHINGTON − A deal reached by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Saturday night faced pushback from House members from both parties, raising doubts whether the agreement will secure the votes to pass Congress and avert a default before June 5.

Hardline conservative Republicans who make up the House Freedom Caucus said the bill does not produce the scale of spending cuts they wanted, while progressive Democrats expressed discomfort with expanded work requirements for food stamps and other concessions made by the White House.

“Yes, they have to worry,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash, who chairs the House Progressive Caucus, said when asked in an interview on CNN about support from other liberals. “I think it’s going to come down to what the legislative text is.”

McCarthy said the text of “The Fiscal Responsibility Act,” expected to about 150 pages, will be released later Sunday. But already the agreement in principle has drawn opposition from several of the 45 House Republicans who make up the House Freedom Caucus.

“This ‘deal’ is insanity,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., tweeted. “A $4T debt ceiling increase with virtually no cuts is not what we agreed to. Not gonna vote to bankrupt our country. The American people deserve better.”

The compromise, finalized during an hour-and-a-half phone call between Biden and McCarthy Saturday night, would raise the limit on how much the government can borrow through the end of 2024.

In return, it would cap annual discretionary spending for two years, keeping non-defense spending levels flat next year and raising it by 1% in 2025.

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It also achieves several Republican spending demands: creates new time limits for recipients of food stumps who don’t meet work requirements, claws back billions in unspent COVID-19 funding, rolls back $10 billion in IRS enforcement money and expedites permitting for energy projects.

Still, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, another member of the Freedom Caucus, slammed the deal for maintaining “bloated 2023 spending levels” and preserving “Democrats’ wish list.” He criticized the agreement for leaving the bulk of $80 billion for IRS enforcement untouched, not eliminating climate subsidies from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and the not extending work requirements to Medicaid recipients.

“We’re going to try,” Roy said in a tweet, responding to an individual demanding he stop the deal from passing the House.

McCarthy: ‘There’s not one thing in the bill for Democrats’

McCarthy downplayed the unrest of some Republican lawmakers in an appearance on Fox New Sunday, saying 95% of his members support a deal that will allow them to be “the first Congress to cut spending year over year.” He said Republican leadership will have the votes for passage.

“There’s not one thing in the bill for Democrats,” McCarthy said. “We were able to do this when the president said he wasn’t even going to talk to us.”

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., one of the top Republican negotiators of the deal, said only “the most colorful conservatives” oppose the deal. “Those votes were never really in play, we get that,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union. “This is going to pass.”

The deal needs 218 votes in the 435-member House of Representatives for it to pass, and then it would head to the Democratic-controlled Senate before Biden’s signature.

Detractors among the most conservative House Republicans had been expected. As a result, the White House has believed as many as 100 House Democrats could be needed to vote for the debt ceiling deal in order for it to move forward.

Rep. Jim Himes, a moderate Democrat from Connecticut, said, “I’m anything but a clear yes vote at this point” during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, arguing the bill doesn’t deliver on any Democratic priorities.

But Himes said the bill might find support from Democrats because it’s far less reaching than the debt ceiling bill House Republicans passed last month.

“It’s not a bill that is going to make any Democrats happy,” he said. “But it’s a small enough bill that, in the service of actually not destroying the economy this week, may get Democratic votes.”