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      US debt ceiling deal narrowly passes senate averting catastrophic federal default

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      The Senate narrowly passed a bill to suspend the debt ceiling on Thursday night, sending the legislation to Joe Biden’s desk and averting a federal default that could have wreaked havoc on the US economy and global markets.The final vote was 63 to 36, with 46 Democrats and 17 Republicans supporting the bill while five Democrats and 31 Republicans opposed the legislation. Sixty votes were needed to pass the bill.“Tonight’s vote is a good outcome because Democrats did a very good job taking the worst parts of the Republican plan off the table,” the Senate majority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, said after the vote. “And that’s why Dems voted overwhelmingly for this bill, while Republicans certainly in the Senate did not.”Biden applauded the Senate’s accomplishment and promised to sign the bill as soon as it reaches his desk, with just days to go before the 5 June default deadline.“Tonight, senators from both parties voted to protect the hard-earned economic progress we have made and prevent a first-ever default by the United States,” Biden said in a statement. “Our work is far from finished, but this agreement is a critical step forward, and a reminder of what’s possible when we act in the best interests of our country.”The Senate vote came one day after the House passed the debt ceiling bill in a resounding, bipartisan vote of 314 to 117. The bill – which was negotiated between Biden and the House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California – will suspend the government’s borrowing limit until January 2025, ensuring the issue will not resurface before the next presidential election.The final Senate vote on the bill capped off a long day in the upper chamber, where lawmakers spent hours considering amendments to the legislation. All 11 of the proposed amendments failed to gain enough support to be added to the underlying bill.Several of the amendments were introduced by Senate Republicans who expressed concern that the debt ceiling bill passed by the House did too little to rein in government spending.As part of the negotiations over the bill, McCarthy successfully pushed for modest government spending cuts and changes to the work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Programs. Those changes were deemed insufficient by 31 Republican senators, who echoed the criticism voiced by the 71 House Republicans who opposed the bill a day earlier.“It doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t do the basic things that it purports to do,” Senator Mike Lee, a Republican of Utah, told Fox News on Thursday morning. “In case after case, the cuts that it proposes won’t materialize.”The Senate minority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, supported the bill, even as he acknowledged that lawmakers must take further action to tackle the federal government’s debt of more than $31tn.“The Fiscal Responsibility Act avoids the catastrophic consequences of a default on our nation’s debt,” McConnell said on the floor on Thursday morning. “The deal the House passed last night is a promising step toward fiscal sanity. But make no mistake: there is much more work to be done. The fight to reel in wasteful government spending is far from over.”As some of their colleagues lamented the state of America’s debt, defense hawks in the Senate Republican conference warned that the legislation does not sufficiently fund the Pentagon, leaving the US military vulnerable in the face of foreign threats.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSchumer and McConnell attempted to allay those concerns by entering a statement into the record reaffirming that America stands ready to “respond to ongoing and growing national security threats”.“This debt ceiling deal does nothing to limit the Senate’s ability to appropriate emergency supplemental funds to ensure our military capabilities are sufficient to deter China, Russia and our other adversaries,” the joint statement read. “The Senate is not about to ignore our national needs, nor abandon our friends and allies who face urgent threats from America’s most dangerous adversaries.”The Senate leaders released a second statement aimed at reassuring colleagues who expressed alarm over a provision stipulating that an across-the-board spending cut will be enacted if Congress does not pass all 12 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024. The measure was designed to incentivize Congress members to pass a full budget, which has proven to be a difficult task in recent years, but lawmakers fear the policy will lead to more spending cuts.“We share the concern of many of our colleagues about the potential impact of sequestration and we will work in a bipartisan, collaborative way to avoid this outcome,” Schumer and McConnell said. “The leaders look forward to bills being reported out of committee with strong bipartisan support.”Senate Democrats also lobbied against certain provisions in the bill, namely the expedited approval of the controversial Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline. Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat of Virginia, introduced an amendment to remove the pipeline provision from the underlying debt ceiling bill, but that measure failed alongside the 10 other proposed amendments.Despite their personal concerns about the details of the bill, most Senate Democrats, including Kaine, supported the legislation to get it to Biden’s desk and avoid a devastating default that economists warned could result in millions of lost jobs. With the immediate crisis averted, Democrats reiterated their demands to eliminate the debt ceiling and remove any future threat of default.“The fact remains that the House majority never should have put us at risk of a disastrous, self-inflicted default in the first place,” said Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat. “We should prevent the debt ceiling from being used as a political hostage and stop allowing our country to be taken up to the edge of default.” More

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      Debt ceiling bill: key takeaways from the vote

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      The US House of Representatives passed the much-debated debt ceiling bill on Wednesday evening, moving the country closer to avoiding a potentially catastrophic default. Next up in line is the Senate, the Democrat majority chamber, which would push the bill to Joe Biden’s desk.But the vote on Wednesday revealed the divided lines, not only between Republicans and Democrats, but within the parties. Here are some key takeaways from this vote on the Fiscal Responsibility Act:Kevin McCarthy’s party faced significant internal resistanceMore Democrats (165) than Republicans (149) supported the measure – something the right wing may use as evidence that the bill was a bad deal for their side. Indeed, the Republican opposition to the bill is much louder than that of progressive Democrats, who are concerned about the cuts to benefits programs and the impact on climate.Key Democratic programs and priorities will feel the effectsAn estimated 750,000 could lose food stamp benefits due to the new work requirements, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive thinktank. And in another blow to progressives, the bill gives special treatment to the Mountain Valley pipeline.A quarter of the $80bn of newly allotted funding to refurbish the IRS will also be cut from Biden’s key legislation, the Inflation Reduction ActBut it preserves health plans, Social Security and other programsThe bill will not impact Medicaid benefits, the main government health program for low income Americans, or social security, even though McCarthy tried to keep the debate open on such programs just hours ahead of Wednesday’s vote. Republicans attempted to cut these plans to curb government spending. However the bill will avoid more increases to the bloated US defense budget.And the agreement will fully fund medical care for veterans at the levels included in Biden’s proposed 2024 budget blueprint.Both Biden and McCarthy are counting this as a winWhile critics say the president could have avoided making multiple concessions, the president touted his ability to bring the deal together under heated circumstances, and the bipartisanship he has famously campaigned on.“This budget agreement is a bipartisan compromise,” the president said in a statement reacting to the news. “Neither side got everything it wanted. That’s the responsibility of governing. I want to thank speaker McCarthy and his team for negotiating in good faith, as well as leader Jeffries for his leadership. This agreement is good news for the American people and the American economy.”McCarthy, meanwhile, claimed the bill would herald the “largest savings in American history” during the floor debate, though this is not quite accurate.“I have been thinking about this day before my vote for speaker because I knew the debt ceiling was coming. And I wanted to make history. I wanted to do something no other Congress has done,” McCarthy told reporters after the vote. “Tonight, we all made history.”The Senate is already making moves to move the bill forwardChuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader has already put the debt limit bill on the Senate calendar to start the process on Thursday. There is likely to be some resistance there as well, as progressives such as Bernie Sanders have already signaled their concerns, but the bill is expected to pass. More

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      US House passes bill to raise debt ceiling just days before default

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      The House passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling on Wednesday, clearing a major legislative hurdle with just days left before the US is expected to default.The final House vote was 314 to 117, with 149 Republicans and 165 Democrats supporting the measure. In a potentially worrisome sign for the House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, 71 members of his conference opposed the deal that he brokered with President Joe Biden.Taking a victory lap after the bill’s passage, McCarthy downplayed concerns over divisions within the House Republican conference and celebrated the policy concessions he secured in his negotiations with Biden.“I have been thinking about this day before my vote for speaker because I knew the debt ceiling was coming. And I wanted to make history. I wanted to do something no other Congress has done,” McCarthy told reporters after the vote. “Tonight, we all made history.”Biden applauded the House passage of the legislation, calling on the Senate to quickly take up the legislation to avoid a default. The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has warned that the federal government will be unable to pay its bills starting 5 June unless the debt ceiling is raised.“This budget agreement is a bipartisan compromise. Neither side got everything it wanted,” Biden said in a statement. “I have been clear that the only path forward is a bipartisan compromise that can earn the support of both parties. This agreement meets that test.”The debt ceiling bill passed by the House would raise the government’s borrowing limit until January 2025, ensuring the issue will not resurface before the next presidential election. As part of his negotiations with Biden, McCarthy successfully pushed for government spending cuts and changes to the work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.However, the concessions that McCarthy won fell far short for members of the freedom caucus, who had pushed for steeper spending cuts and much stricter work requirements for benefits programs. They belittled the debt ceiling compromise as a paltry effort to tackle the nation’s debt, which stands at more than $31tn.Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, chair of the freedom caucus, said on Twitter before the vote, “President Biden is happily sending Americans over yet another fiscal cliff, with far too many swampy Republicans behind the wheel of a ‘deal’ that fails miserably to address the real reason for our debt crisis: SPENDING.”House freedom caucus members staged one last attempt to block the debt ceiling bill from advancing on Wednesday afternoon, when they opposed a procedural motion prior to the final vote. With 29 Republicans voting against the motion, McCarthy had to rely on Democratic assistance to advance the debt ceiling proposal. In the end, 52 Democrats voted for the motion, setting up the final vote and virtually ensuring the bill’s passage.The House Democratic leader, representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, mocked McCarthy’s failure to unify his party, arguing the procedural vote proved the speaker has “lost control of the floor”.“It’s an extraordinary act that indicates just the nature of the extremism that is out of control on the other side of the aisle,” Jeffries said during the floor debate before the final vote. “Extreme Maga Republicans attempted to take control of the House floor. Democrats took it back for the American people.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDespite his sharp criticism of McCarthy and his Republican colleagues, Jeffries and the majority of the House Democratic caucus supported the debt ceiling bill. Although they lamented the spending cuts included in the bill, those Democrats argued the crucial importance of avoiding a default outweighed their personal concerns about the legislation.“Our constitution makes perfectly clear the validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned,” said California representative Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic House speaker. “While I find this legislation objectionable, it will avert an unprecedented default, which would bring devastation to America’s families.”But dozens of progressive lawmakers opposed the bill, attacking the spending cuts and new work requirements procured by McCarthy as an affront to the voters who elected them.“Republicans never cared about reducing the deficit, only about forcing through their anti-working family policy priorities under the threat of a catastrophic default,” said Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “The deal they passed tonight proves that point, and I could not be part of their extortion scheme.”Progressives in the Senate, including Senator Bernie Sanders, have echoed that criticism and indicated they plan to oppose the debt ceiling proposal, but the bill still appears likely to become law. The Senate Democratic majority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, has pledged to act swiftly to take up the bill once it has passed the House. The Senate Republican minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has already indicated he plans to support the proposal as well.“Any needless delay, any last-minute brinksmanship at this point would be an unacceptable risk,” Schumer said in a floor speech Wednesday morning. “Moving quickly, working together to avoid default is the responsible and necessary thing to do.” More

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      McCarthy insists Republican support for debt deal ‘easy’ despite vocal opposition

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      The Republican speaker of the US House, Kevin McCarthy, insisted on Tuesday that supporting the debt ceiling deal would be “easy” for his party and it was likely to pass through Congress despite one prominent rightwinger’s verdict that the proposed agreement is a “turd sandwich”.Amid loud denunciations from the Republican right and also from closer to the centre, McCarthy said he was not worried the agreement would fail, or that it would threaten his hold on the speaker’s gavel.The bill is the “most conservative deal we’ve ever had”, McCarthy told reporters, of a two-year agreement that includes spending freezes and rescinding Internal Revenue Service funding while leaving military and veterans spending untouched.Negotiators fielded by McCarthy and Joe Biden reached the deal to raise the $31.4tn US debt ceiling last weekend.A default would be likely to have catastrophic consequences for the US and world economies. The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has said that will happen on 5 June if no bill is passed.But members of the far-right the House Freedom Caucus have balked at the deal.Chip Roy of Texas, who in January played a key role in securing the speakership for McCarthy after 15 rounds of voting, amid a rightwing rebellion, had perhaps the most pungent response.He said the debt ceiling deal was a “turd sandwich”, because it did not include spending cuts demanded by the hard right.Speaking to reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday, Roy said he had not changed his mind.“Right now, it ain’t good,” he said.Another rightwing firebrand, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, said he “anticipate[d] voting for” the bill, having said: “I think it’s important to keep in mind the debt limit bill itself does not spend money.”But a comparative moderate, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, resorted to personal abuse of Biden when she said on Twitter: “Washington is broken. Republicans got outsmarted by a president who can’t find his pants. I’m voting no on the debt ceiling debacle because playing the DC game isn’t worth selling out our kids and grandkids.”Republicans regularly claim without evidence that Biden, 80, is too old and mentally unfit to be president. Conversely, many political observers have credited Biden and his White House negotiators with pulling off a deal to avoid default while keeping Democrats on the front foot.Saluting Biden’s “capacity to over-perform after an onslaught of negative press and Democratic hand-wringing”, the Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin said: “Biden brushed back the litany of outrageous demands, kept his spending agenda and tax increases intact and got his two-year debt limit increase.“And in making a deal with [McCarthy] Biden helps stoke dissension on the GOP side as the extreme Maga wing denounces the agreement.”Biden has also faced criticism from progressives and from environmental activists, in the latter case over the inclusion in the deal of approval for a controversial pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia.“Singling out the Mountain Valley pipeline for approval in a vote about our nation’s credit limit is an egregious act,” said Peter Anderson of Appalachian Voices, which has charted hundreds of environmental violations by the project.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRepublicans control the House by 222-213. By Tuesday afternoon, more than 20 Republicans had said they would vote against the deal. Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, has said the party should let default happen if Biden does not cave.If defections proliferate, McCarthy could be left needing Democratic support to pass the bill arising from the deal and thereby avoid default.On Tuesday, the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said his party would do their part to win passage of the bill.“My expectation is House Republicans will keep their commitment to produce at least two-thirds of their conference which is approximately 150 votes” and pass the bill, Jeffries said. “Democrats are committed to making sure we do our part in avoiding default.”Jeffries said he did not think there would be a problem advancing the bill through the rules committee. That panel was due to consider the 99-page bill beginning at 3pm ET on Tuesday, ahead of votes in the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-held Senate.Democrats control the Senate 51-49. Some Senate Republicans have voiced dissatisfaction with the deal.On Tuesday, one of Biden’s negotiators, the budget director, Shalanda Young, said the White House “strongly urged” Congress to pass the bill. Wally Adeyemo, the deputy treasury secretary, told MSNBC the deal was a “good faith compromise” that took a debt default off the table.A White House spokesperson said Biden was having conversations with both progressive and moderate Democrats ahead of a House vote planned for Wednesday.Markets have reacted positively to the deal so far.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      US debt ceiling deal: what has to happen now to get it passed?

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      The United States has days before it runs out of time to pay its bills and avoid a first-ever national default. Washington lawmakers are scrambling to push through a deal that would temporarily suspend the US debt limit, averting a potential disaster for the domestic and global economy.The debt ceiling, which caps the amount of debt the US can hold, currently sits at $31.4tn. The US hit that limit in January. Since then, the treasury has taken “extraordinary measures” to prevent default.Last week, the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, warned lawmakers that the US must pay its debts by 5 June – at which point the government would default.The deal on the tableOver the weekend, negotiators for Joe Biden and the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, reached a tentative deal to suspend the debt limit and avoid a debt default.The clock then began for members of the House, who had 72 hours to review the deal and pass it through a floor vote.Then there’s a voteThe powerful House rules committee meets to review the deal, called the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, on Tuesday afternoon. The deal is expected to go to a chamber vote on Wednesday.If passed by a simple majority in the House, the bill would then move to the Senate for another review, which could take days. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, told senators to be prepared to vote on Friday and potentially over the weekend, days before the 5 June deadline.Once it moves through both chambers of Congress, the bill then goes to the president’s desk for his signature.What are its chances of getting through?While lawmakers have expressed confidence that the bill would successfully get past Congress, some hardline Republicans have signaled they will not sign the deal.Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the rules committee, has urged fellow lawmakers to vote no on the deal.“This is not a deal that we should be taking,” Roy told Fox News’ Glenn Beck on Tuesday.What’s in the deal?If passed, the deal would suspend the US debt limit through 1 January 2025, well past the next US presidential election, which is in November 2024. But suspending the debt limit is a temporary measure, and the US would need to bring down the national debt or raise the ceiling by the new deadline.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe deal would keep non-defense spending roughly the same for fiscal year 2024 and raise it by 1% in fiscal year 2025.The bill would also place new restrictions on Snap benefits, limiting the number of individuals eligible for food stamps. Unspent emergency aid related to the Covid-19 pandemic, totaling about $30bn, will also be returned to the government.What happens if the US credit score drops?A national default would probably tank the US credit rating, currently at AAA, the highest status. A lower credit rating makes it more risky for international lenders and costly for individuals living in the US to take out loans.The last time the US reached the brink of a national default was 2011. After that, one credit rating agency, S&P, downgraded the US’s credit rating, citing troubled policymaking in Washington. That sent markets tumbling, sending shockwaves through the global economy, and made it more expensive for ordinary consumers seeking to buy a house or a car.What’s next?Concessions had to be made on both sides of the aisle. Biden and McCarthy will need to assuage members of their party ahead of a major election year, in which both are seeking another term.“We have learned from past debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States,” Yellen wrote in a letter to McCarthy on Friday.Failing to increase the debt limit “would cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position, and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests”, Yellen added. More

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      ‘An egregious act’: debt ceiling deal imperils the environment, critics say

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      The deal to raise the US debt ceiling will have significant ramifications for the climate and nature, by fast-tracking a controversial gas pipeline in West Virginia and limiting the scope of environmental reviews for future developments, environmentalists have warned.The agreement struck between Joe Biden and Republicans who control the House of Representatives states the Mountain Valley pipeline is “required in the national interest” and should be issued its necessary permits within 21 days and be shielded from legal challenge by those who object to it.Environmentalists reacted in outrage at the deal, arguing the 300-mile (480km) pipeline, which will bring fracked gas from West Virginia to southern Virginia, will endanger hundreds of waterways, threaten landscapes including the nearby Appalachian trail and worsen the climate crisis.“Singling out the Mountain Valley pipeline for approval in a vote about our nation’s credit limit is an egregious act,” said Peter Anderson, Virginia policy director at Appalachian Voices, a campaign group that has charted hundreds of environmental violations by the project across the two states.“By attempting to suspend the rules for a pipeline company that has repeatedly polluted communities’ water and flouted the conditions in its permits, the president and Congress would deny basic legal protections, procedural fairness and environmental justice to communities along the pipeline’s path.”The pipeline was recently provided a key approval by the federal government to go through a stretch of forest but is currently stymied by court action that has dogged it for years. Mountain Valley has just 20 miles (30km) left to complete but is several years behind schedule due to opposition from green groups and nearby residents who risk having their land taken for the project.However, Joe Manchin, the West Virginia senator, coal baron and the Senate’s leading beneficiary of campaign donations from gas pipeline interests, has vigorously lobbied for the pipeline’s construction and appears to have prevailed in his quest. Manchin, a centrist Democrat, is considered a valued swing vote in an evenly divided Senate.“I am pleased speaker [Kevin] McCarthy and his leadership team see the tremendous value in completing the [Mountain Valley pipeline] to increase domestic energy production and drive down costs across America and especially in West Virginia,” Manchin said in a statement that did not mention Biden. “I am proud to have fought for this critical project and to have secured the bipartisan support necessary to get it across the finish line.”The White House has framed the debt ceiling deal as one that has protected Biden’s key climate achievements, such as the numerous provisions for clean energy support in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which Republicans were keen to strip away in negotiations.But the agreement does not include any measures to accelerate the expansion of electricity transmission, a crucial factor in whether the shift to renewables will actually materialize, while acceding to Republican demands to curtail the environmental reviews of developments such as oil and gas pipelines.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUnder the deal, reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, the US’s first national environmental law, will be limited to just two years for federal projects.Environmental groups, already angered by Biden’s ongoing embrace of large fossil fuel projects, such as the recently approved Willow oil drilling operation in Alaska, said these provisions mean that Democrats should block the debt deal when it is voted upon in Congress this week.“President Biden made a colossal error in negotiating a deal that sacrifices the climate and working families,” said Jean Su, energy justice program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Congress should reject these poison pills and pass a clean debt ceiling bill.” More

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      US debt ceiling deal: what’s in and out of Biden and McCarthy’s agreement

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      Details of the deal between Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy take the form of a 99-page bill that would suspend the nation’s debt limit into 2025 in order to avoid an unprecedented federal default, which the White House said on Monday would be “catastrophic for the American people”, while limiting government spending.The Democratic president and Republican House speaker are trying to win over lawmakers to the plan in time to avert a default that would shake the global economy. But Congress will be scrutinizing and debating the legislation fiercely this week.McCarthy said the House will vote on the legislation Wednesday, giving the Senate time to consider it before 5 June, the date when the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said the US could default on its debt obligations if lawmakers did not act in time.With the details of the deal now clear, here’s what’s in and out:Two-year debt limit suspension, spending limitsThe agreement would keep non-defense spending roughly flat in the 2024 fiscal year and increase it by 1% the following year, as well as suspend the debt limit until January 2025 – past the next presidential election.For the next fiscal year, the bill matches Biden’s proposed defense budget of $886bn and allots $704bn for non-defense spending. It also requires Congress to approve 12 annual spending bills or face a snapback to spending limits from the previous year, which would mean a 1% cut.Overall, the White House estimates that the plan would reduce government spending by at least $1tn, but official calculations have not yet been released.Care for military veteransThe agreement would fully fund medical care for veterans at the levels included in Biden’s proposed 2024 budget blueprint, including a fund dedicated to veterans who have been exposed to toxic substances or environmental hazards. Biden sought $20.3bn for the toxic exposure fund in his budget.Unspent money from Covid-19 pandemicThe agreement would rescind about $30bn in unspent coronavirus relief money that Congress approved through previous bills, including federal programs for rental assistance, small business loans and broadband internet for rural areas.The legislation protects pandemic funding for veterans’ medical care, housing assistance, the Indian Health Service and developing the next generation of Covid-19 vaccines and treatments.Funding for the Internal Revenue ServiceRepublicans targeted money that the federal tax agency was allotted last year to crack down on tax fraud. The bill bites into some Internal Revenue Service (IRS) funding, rescinding $1.4bn.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWork-for-benefits requirementThe agreement would expand work requirements attached to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Snap, formerly known as food stamps – a longtime Republican priority. But the changes are pared down from a hardline debt ceiling bill previously generated and passed in the House, which are a huge no for progressive Democrats.Work requirements already exist for most able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 49. The bill would phase in higher age limits, bringing the maximum age to 54 by 2025. But the provision expires, bringing the maximum age back down to age 49 five years later, in 2030.Democrats also won some new expanded benefits for veterans, homeless people and young people ageing out of foster care. The agreement would also make a small boost to the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, which gives cash aid to families with children, making it harder for states to avoid paying.Energy projectsThe deal puts in place changes in the National Environmental Policy Act for the first time in nearly four decades that would designate “a single lead agency” to develop and schedule environmental reviews, in hopes of streamlining the process for approval for energy projects – both involving fossil fuels and renewable energy.The bill also gives special treatment to the controversial Mountain Valley pipeline, a West Virginia natural gas pipeline championed by pivotal Democratic senator Joe Manchin, and Republican senator Shelley Moore Capito, by approving all its outstanding permit requests.Student loansRepublicans have long sought to reel back Biden’s temporary relief on student loans during the coronavirus pandemic. Biden has agreed that the pause in loan repayments will end in late August. Meanwhile, a GOP proposal to rescind the White House’s plan to waive $10,000 to $20,000 in debt for nearly all student borrowers is not in the debt ceiling package. The conservative-dominated US supreme court is due to rule next month on whether Biden has the power to waive the debt.What’s left out?House Republicans passed legislation last month that would have created new work requirements for some Medicaid recipients, but the White House successfully blocked that from the deal. Also absent is a GOP proposal to repeal many of the clean energy tax credits Democrats passed in party-line votes last year. More

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      Biden, McCarthy agree to raise US debt ceiling – what’s in the deal?

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      Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy have reached an agreement to lift the US debt ceiling and avoid a disastrous and unprecedented default. Prior to the details being presented to lawmakers, ahead of an expected vote on Wednesday, here is what sources familiar with negotiations have revealed:Cap on discretionary spendingThe deal would suspend the $31.4tn debt ceiling until January 2025, allowing the government to pay its bills. In exchange, non-defense discretionary spending would be “roughly flat” at current year levels in 2024, “when factoring in agreed-upon appropriations adjustments”, a source said. It would increase by only 1% in 2025.Republicans have told their members that non-defense discretionary spending, apart from military veterans’ healthcare, would be cut to 2022 levels.What about the 2024 presidential election?The debt limit extension schedule means Congress would not need to address the deeply polarizing issue again until after the November 2024 election. This would prevent another political showdown that rattles global investors and markets until after either a Republican is elected president or Biden wins a second term.Increased defense spendingThe deal is expected to boost defense spending to around $885bn, in line with Biden’s 2024 budget spending proposal, an 11% increase from the $800bn allocated in the current budget.Special IRS funding for federal tax authoritiesBiden and Democrats secured $80bn in new funding for a decade to help the Internal Revenue Service enforce the tax code for wealthy Americans in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. Republicans and Democrats had battled over moving that funding, which was allocated under the act as “mandatory spending” to keep it from the political fighting of the annual budgeting process, to “discretionary spending” to be allocated by Congress.Covid clawback, cuts for the CDCBiden and McCarthy are expected to agree to claw back unused Covid-19 relief funds as part of the budget deal, including funding that had been set aside for vaccine research and disaster relief. The estimated amount of unused funds is between $50bn and $70bn. The bill will also cut $400m from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) global health fund “that sends taxpayer money to China”, Republicans told members, despite the risks of future pandemics.Work requirementsBiden and McCarthy battled fiercely over imposing stricter work requirements on low-income Americans who benefit from federal food and healthcare programs.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNo changes were made to Medicaid health insurance in the deal, but the agreement would impose new work requirements on low-income people who receive food assistance, up to age 54, instead of 50.Student loansRepublicans said that they ensured borrowers would have to repay their student loans. However, other sources say the deal codifies relief from student loan payments while Biden’s executive action providing up to $20,000 of debt relief for each borrower is under review by the US supreme court, with a decision expected next month.‘Pay-go’Republicans said they secured a budgeting mechanism known as “pay-go”, short for “pay-as-you-go”, that says new legislation or executive orders affecting revenues and spending on Medicare, social security and other key programs must be budget-neutral.Energy permittingThe two leaders agreed to new rules to make it easier for energy projects – including fossil fuel-based ones as well as renewable energy – to gain permit approval. More