WASHINGTON: The United States House of Representatives approved the legislation to suspend the government’s borrowing limit until early 2025, a step toward averting the Washington political showdown five days before the country could run out of money to pay its bills.
According to Voice of America, with a late Wednesday vote of 314-117, the bill was passed and headed to the Senate with passage expected by week’s end and President Biden’s signature at the White House. The measure suspends the government’s current 31.4 trillion dollars debt ceiling.
Far-right Republican lawmakers criticised the deal by Democratic President Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for not cutting enough in future government spending. At the same time, some progressive Democrats said it trims too much.
The contentious fight over the legislation is turning into a test of McCarthy’s hold on the top leadership post in the House, which he won in January after 15 rounds of voting and after he promised archconservatives a more significant say in attempting to rein in government budgets. The United States chronically records annual trillion-dollar deficits, adding to the long-term debt total.
Under informal Republican rules managing the House with the narrow majority, McCarthy had pledged not to bring up legislation for a total House vote without the support of at least 111 members of his 222-member Republican caucus. Before the vote, he expected at least 150 Republicans to support the suspension of the debt ceiling.
If McCarthy were to lose 111 Republicans on the debt ceiling vote, at least 107 of the 213 House Democrats would need to support it for the legislation to pass.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “House Democrats are going to ensure the country doesn’t default. Period. Full stop.”
One Freedom Caucus member, Representative Ken Buck, told NBC News that conservative lawmakers don’t have enough votes to kill the legislation.
Buck said, “The nation will not default,”
But he and other Republicans voiced scepticism about the legitimacy of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s warning that the government would run out of money next Monday to meet all its financial obligations, including cash to pay interest on government bonds, pensions to older Americans and salaries to the army and government employees.
The House Rules Committee sent the legislation to the full House on a 7-6 vote Tuesday night, showing some of that discontent, with two Republicans voting against advancing the bill.
The proposal before Congress includes waiving the existing borrowing limit until January 2025, and a two-year budget deal keeps federal spending flat in 2024 and increases it by 1 per cent in 2025. The measure doesn’t raise taxes, nor would it stop the national debt total from growing, perhaps by another 3 trillion dollars or more over the next year and a half.
Other pieces of the legislation include a reduction in the number of the latest agents hired by the country’s tax collection agency, a requirement that states return 30 billion dollars in unspent coronavirus pandemic assistance to the central government and extending from 50 to 54 the upper age bracket for those required to work to receive food aid.
Some liberal Democratic lawmakers have objected to the deal, saying it cuts too much in social welfare spending or holds some programs at a flat spending level. Republicans say it allows for more spending than legislation they approved weeks ago calling for steeper cuts and a debt ceiling extension of less than a year totalling about 1.5 trillion dollars.
Biden insisted on a new debt ceiling that extended beyond the November 2024 presidential election in which he is seeking a second four-year term so that the recent contentious debate wouldn’t be repeated during the political campaign next year.
One Republican critic of the debt ceiling legislation, Representative Dan Bishop, complained Tuesday about the length of the extension.
Bishop said, “It removes the problem from the national conversation during the presidential election to come, and how could you more successfully kneecap any Republican [presidential candidate] than to take that problem out of his or her hands?”
Biden and McCarthy have been lobbying Democrats and Republicans to pass the measure.
Biden said, “The agreement prevents the worst possible issues — a default — for the first time in our nation’s history.”
It “takes the threat of a catastrophic default off the table.”
Biden said, “The agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want. But that’s the responsibility of governing.”
McCarthy called the bill the “most conservative deal we have ever had.”
