Debt ceiling deal goes to Congress
- Speaker and President reach debt/budget deal
- Tuesday House Rules Committee vote, Wednesday House vote
- Biden, McCarthy, Schumer, McConnell all back deal
- Debt ceiling suspended until 2025
After intense negotiations between the White House and the House Speaker, an agreement was reached over the weekend that, if passed, would avoid a government default on US Government payments. Last week Treasury Secretary Yellen told Congress that the X-Date for default was June 5. Now the tough part comes getting 218 votes in the House and 60 votes in the Senate.
Here is a link to the language in the bill Congress will consider.
The good news is that the compromise legislation has solid support from all the leaders. Obviously, President Biden and Speaker McCarthy support the deal. The first challenge to get the bill passed will be for the Speaker to line up Republican votes in the House. All bills that come to the House floor must first get a “rule” that outlines the procedures that will be followed when the legislation is considered. The “rule” is approved by the Rules Committee. When McCarthy was fighting for the votes to become Speaker he agreed to a conservative demand that Freedom Caucus conservatives be appointed to the Rules Committee. If these conservative Republicans oppose the bill and oppose the “rule” it may require that Democrats join with the other Committee Republicans to get the bill to the floor. The Rules Committee is currently scheduled to meet on Tuesday afternoon, and this will be the first test in the House of the deal.
While Democrats seldom join Republicans to support a “rule” it is in their interest to get the debt ceiling/budget deal approved and the President and other Administration officials will be working with the House Democratic leadership to get the bill passed.
There has been a lot written on how much McCarthy and the Republicans got out of the deal, but the big gain the Democrats got was a suspension of the debt ceiling that runs until after the 2024 Elections until 2025. The bill that Republicans passed slashing government spending increased the debt ceiling only until March 31 of next year. That would have caused a debt ceiling crisis in the middle of an election year which couldn’t be a good thing for the incumbent President. Getting a two year suspension was a high priority for the White House.
The deal keeps the Defense levels proposed by the President as well as funding for Veterans health programs that had been approved by the Democratic Congress last year. The much publicized work requirements will impact benefit recipients who don’t have children under 18 and, importantly, veterans and the homeless are excluded.
The deal pushes for Congress to pass the 12 Appropriation Bills to fund the various departments of government for the new fiscal year that begins October 1, and the agreement returns non-defense spending to levels approved in the last fiscal year. While there was some Republican disappointment that the spending caps only last for two years, realistically that is all that an agreement can achieve. A core principle of our constitutional government is that one Congress can’t bind another; hence any agreement would not stand either Democratic gains in 2024 or a maintenance of divided government.
Legislative process
As explained above the first step will be for the House Rules Committee to pass a “rule” that gets the bill to the House floor on Wednesday. The “rule” won’t permit any amendments, which is a common procedure on carefully crafted compromise legislation. Republicans often find it difficult to vote for any debt ceiling increase, and in fact on the last Trump bill in 2019 132 Republicans voted NO. The Speaker knows he won’t get to 218 with Republican votes alone, but it is his hope to get over half of the 222 House Republicans to support the bill. To get across the finish line Democrats will need to provide the votes to reach the magic number of 218. The House Democratic leadership, working with the President, should be able to deliver the needed votes.
Having worked in Congress when my bosses were the same party as the President, I can say from personal experience that it is very tough to go against the wishes of your Party’s President. Democrats want to hold the Senate and re-capture the House in 2024, and with Joe Biden the likely nominee it would be self-defeating to undermine the President’s efforts to get the debt/budget deal done.
Once the bill passes the House it will go to the Senate where it is likely to need 60 votes to overcome an expected filibuster threat from conservative Republicans. Again, the President should be a big help to Senate Leader Schumer and his team to end any filibuster and pass the bill. Additionally, over the weekend Republican Leader McConnell gave a strong endorsement to the deal. He very publicly turned the negotiations over to the Speaker, and he conferred with the Speaker prior to issuing his support for the bill.
This has been a long and challenging process but it does give Speaker McCarthy accomplishments that range from limited spending caps, to energy permitting reform, and some work requirements for Federal welfare programs. Perhaps most importantly, McCarthy’s strategy reversed the Democratic insistence that Congress pass a clean debt ceiling bill. For Democrats it gives them the high priority of suspending the debt ceiling until 2025.
As the old saying goes sausage and legislation are never pleasant to see being made, this deal makes the point well.
