Politico reports that Speaker Kevin McCarthy appears to have reached a deal with President Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling, but not everyone is happy.
Wednesday should be the big day as they race to stay ahead of the fed projected June 5th default date.
However, even on the day of, things are not necessarily set in stone. 30 GOP lawmakers said they’d be voting against the borrowing extension, but their strength in numbers might not matter.
Democrats are largely in lock step, only requiring a handful of Republicans in congress to support the deal.
First up in the early afternoon, comes a vote to adopt the rules making it possible to vote on the debt ceiling issue.
Then the actual vote on the bill, if all goes well, is expected to occur around 8pm eastern.
McCarthy has seen some encouragement as the economically hard-lined Freedom Caucus no longer stands united against the bill.
Two members of the caucus who sit on the rules committee said they’d only pass it if some amendments were added that Biden didn’t agree to. That would send the vote into a tailspin, making passage unlikely.
But Rep. Thomas Massie, a third Freedom Caucus member on the rules committee, was won over. “If you think I failed you, I’m sorry. But if you think I failed, I think you’re wrong,” he told his caucus.
But on the other side of the aisle, some Democrats are defecting. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced late Tuesday night that she wouldn’t be voting for the debt ceiling extension. She said the work requirements to receive welfare and other social service payouts were a deal killer.
While she does yield a lot of influence, her rejection of the deal isn’t expected to sink it.
And unsurprisingly, 2024 GOP primary candidates are sounding off about the issue.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is opposed to the current debt extension plan, saying the nation will be “careening towards bankruptcy.”
DeSantis is making a play to campaign to Trump’s right, and his conservative stance on economic issues might win him some supporters.
Still, as a Trump supporting congressman notes, DeSantis did actually vote for the 2021 debt ceiling extension.
And fellow candidate Vivek Ramaswamy came out the strongest amongst the field against the looming vote saying, “reducing the IRS budget from $80 billion to $78 billion doesn’t solve the essential problem of a corrupt administrative state – at the IRS or elsewhere.”
Ramaswamy is pointing to one of the concessions the GOP won.
The whole situation puts Biden and McCarthy between a rock and a hard place.
GOP members say a 4 trillion dollar borrowing extension is too much. Even in light of the slight decrease in the IRS budget, and the creation of work requirements to receive social welfare.
But hard left Democrats say these concessions are too much.
Still, there might be just a handful of ten or so odd ducks who are not happy with the deal. The rest are expected to fall in line, allowing the US to even further jump off an economically precarious cliff.
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