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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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      ‘Stop the dirty deal’: activists decry Schumer and Manchin over pipeline plan

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      Climate activists have stepped up protests over the inclusion of a provision to speed up a controversial gas pipeline’s completion in the deal to raise the debt ceiling as Congress prepares to vote on Wednesday, aiming criticism at Democrats Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin.The pipeline project has long been championed by Manchin, the West Virginia senator who was the top recipient of fossil fuel industry contributions during the 2022 election cycle.Activists, led by the advocacy group Climate Defiance and supported by Food and Water Watch, Climate Families NYC, Center for Popular Democracy, Sunrise Movement NYC and others, rallied outside the Senate majority leader home in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood on Tuesday evening, chanting “Schumer, stop the dirty deal” and demanding the $6.6bn Mountain Valley Pipeline be stripped from the legislation.Schumer has also received donations from one of the companies behind the pipeline.The protests came hours after nearly 200 groups sent a letter to Schumer and members of Congress remove the pipeline from the deal.“The unscrupulous brinkmanship on display in Washington is endangering our very future,” Eric Weltman, senior New York organizer at the environmental advocacy group Food and Water Watch, said in a statement. “Our climate and communities are not for sale – any deal that holds the economy and climate hostage for the profit of dirty energy donors is a betrayal.”Last year, Manchin failed to make the approval of the pipeline part of the Inflation Reduction Act. But in exchange for his crucial vote for the legislation, he secured a commitment from Schumer to pass a separate bill to expedite the pipeline’s construction and help fast-track the construction of other energy infrastructure. The permitting legislation failed at the hands of Senate Republicans who were unhappy with the compromise.NextEra Energy, one company behind the Mountain Valley pipeline, is a major contributor to Manchin and Schumer. In the 2022 cycle, the company’s employees and political action committees gave $60,000 to Manchin and a stunning $302,000 to Schumer, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.Food and Water Watch is also doing daily phone banks and has set up a dedicated hotline to Schumer’s office. Meanwhile, Appalachian Voices is holding three rallies at Senator Mark Warner’s Virginia office pushing for a debt deal that does not include the pipeline.“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 national environmental organization Center for Biological Diversity.House and Senate lawmakers from both parties have also filed amendments to strip the Mountain Valley pipeline from the debt ceiling deal. A group of House Democrats from Virginia have led the push to cut the provision.Democratic senator Tim Kaine plans to file a similar Senate amendment.“Senator Kaine is extremely disappointed by the provision of the bill to greenlight the controversial Mountain Valley pipeline in Virginia, bypassing the normal judicial and administrative review process every other energy project has to go through,” a Kaine spokesperson said in a statement. “This provision is completely unrelated to the debt ceiling matter.”Environmentalists have spent a decade fighting the construction of the $6.6bn Mountain Valley pipeline, which is intended to carry natural gas 300 miles from the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia to Virginia, crossing nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands. A report from Oil Change International last year found the project would result in the emission of 89m metric tons of planet-heating pollution annually, or the equivalent of building 26 new coal power plants.The pipeline has long faced scrutiny in courts. Since construction began in 2018, the Mountain Valley pipeline has been cited for hundreds of violations in West Virginia and Virginia. Last month, a US court of appeals struck down certain permits for the project on the grounds they would violate the Clean Water Act.The Biden administration has in recent months signed off on several necessary federal permits for the Mountain Valley pipeline. But the debt ceiling legislation would go even further by shielding the project from future litigation.“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 with Appalachian Voices, an activist group which has fought the project for years.“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.”Climate groups, led by the Virginia and West Virginia organization Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights are also planning to rally in front of the White House next week. More

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she will vote against US debt ceiling deal

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      The New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she would vote against the debt limit deal on Wednesday night, as the 5 June deadline looms.On Tuesday, the Hill said the office of one of the most high-profile progressives in the US House confirmed she would not support the controversial agreement to raise the debt ceiling, which was agreed by Republicans under the speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and the Biden White House.Ocasio-Cortez, widely known as AOC, had previously signaled that she would not support the deal.“My red line has already been surpassed,” Ocasio-Cortez said last week. “I mean, where do we start? [No] clean debt ceiling. Work requirements. Cuts to programs. I would never – I would never – vote for that.”Several far-right Republicans have also opposed the deal, saying it does not go far enough to cut spending.Support from Democrats will probably be needed for the bill to pass the House on Wednesday night. But progressive support is split, as some lawmakers raise concerns about work requirements added to welfare programs.“Some number of progressives, including myself, lean no,” Greg Casar, the Progressive caucus whip and a Democrat from Texas, told Axios.The progressive caucus chair, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, said on a Tuesday press call the bill contained measures progressives were “seriously concerned about”.“There will be real harmful impacts for poor people and working people,” Jayapal said, noting that several members had “serious concerns about the environmental justice implications of this bill”.Other progressives emphasized the need to avoid a default.“You have to deal with reality in politics,” the Tennessee representative Steve Cohen, a progressive caucus member, told Axios, adding that concerns about the bill’s contents are “totally secondary to keeping the world’s economy … on track”.The compromise announced on Sunday would suspend debt-limit negotiations through 1 January 2025 and raise the US debt limit from $31.4tn.The deal includes changes to federal assistance programs, including new work requirements for food stamps access. Unspent Covid-19 aid will be returned to the government.Several Democrats have criticized Biden for negotiating with Republicans under threat of a default. More

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      US debt ceiling: Republican hard-right vows to ‘do everything in our power’ to oppose bill

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      Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus have attacked the proposed spending cuts in the debt ceiling bill as woefully inadequate, and vowed to oppose the legislation when it hits the floor.“We had the time to act, and this deal fails – fails completely,” Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, chair of the Freedom Caucus, said on Tuesday. “We will do everything in our power to stop it and end it now.”The House is expected to hold a final vote on the bill on Wednesday, while other members of the Freedom Caucus continue to denounce the compromise brokered by the Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and President Joe Biden over the weekend.The compromise bill, formally named the Fiscal Responsibility Act, would suspend the debt ceiling until 2025, allowing the US to avoid a default that could reap devastating consequences on the American economy. The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has warned that the federal government will be unable to pay its bills starting on 5 June unless Congress takes action.In addition to the debt ceiling suspension, the bill includes government spending cuts and expanded work requirements demanded by McCarthy.“There has been a lot of hard work and a lot of late nights that have gone into changing the spending trajectory in this town,” Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday night. “For once in a long, long time, Washington is actually going to spend less money next year than it is this year, and that’s a reform that all of us can support.”Republicans on the House rules committee voted late on Tuesday to advance the bill, clearing the way for a final vote on Wednesday.During that hearing, two Freedom Caucus members who sit on the panel, Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, attempted to block the legislation from advancing, but they were outnumbered by their colleagues. The final vote in the rules committee was 7-6 to advance the bill, with four Democrats joining Roy and Norman in opposing the measure.“The Republican conference right now has been torn asunder,” Roy said ahead of the hearing. “Not one Republican should vote for this deal. It is a bad deal.”But the Republican chair of the rules committee, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, defended the bill as the party’s best possible option with Democrats in control of the White House and the Senate.“Today’s bill is a product of compromise that reflects the realities of a divided government,” Cole said at the hearing. “In a true negotiation, you always get less than you want and give up more than you’d like.”Despite reassurances from McCarthy and his allies, it remains unclear how many House Republicans will support the proposal. In addition to the Freedom Caucus, some of the more centrist members of the House Republican conference like representatives Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Wesley Hunt of Texas said they would vote against the bill.Dan Bishop of North Carolina, a member of the Freedom Caucus, predicted that most of the House Republican conference would oppose the legislation, forcing McCarthy to rely on Democrats to pass the bill.“This is a career-defining vote for every Republican,” Bishop said Tuesday. “This bill, if it passes, must pass with less than half of the Republican conference.”The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, underscored the reality that Republicans must provide most of the 218 votes needed to get the bill approved.“This is an agreement that, at their insistence, they negotiated with the administration,” Jeffries said. “It’s our full and complete expectation that they are going to produce at least 150 votes.”Some House Democrats also appeared conflicted over the compromise measure on Tuesday, bemoaning the proposed spending cuts while emphasizing the crucial need to increase the government’s borrowing limit before 5 June.“There are some pros to the bill. The chief one is that it raises the debt limit to 2025 and ensures that we avoid a Republican-led catastrophic default,” Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on Tuesday.“I don’t want to minimize the challenges with the bill. There will be real harmful impacts for poor people and working people,” she added.Jayapal said her team was in the process of conducting a whip count to assess where progressive members stand on the debt ceiling bill, but it appears certain that the legislation will win bipartisan support in the House, as the center-left New Democrat Coalition has endorsed the proposal.If the bill passes the House, it will move on to the Senate, where lawmakers will have only a few days to approve the proposal before the 5 June default deadline. Even if McCarthy’s compromise can become law, the speaker’s troubles may be just beginning.Members of the Freedom Caucus, some of whom initially resisted McCarthy’s speakership bid in January, toyed with the idea of ousting him depending on the outcome of Wednesday’s vote.Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida told Newsmax on Tuesday, “If a majority of Republicans are against a piece of legislation, and you use Democrats to pass it, that would immediately be a black-letter violation of the deal we had with McCarthy to allow his ascent to the speakership, and it would likely trigger an immediate motion to vacate.” More