WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and White House officials worked to shore up support for a bill that might raise the debt ceiling and cut government spending, because the House prepared to vote Wednesday night on the laws.
After weeks of grueling negotiations, the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed its first major test Tuesday night within the House Rules Committee, where it advanced to the House floor in a 7-6 vote.
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Greater than 30 Republican hardliners have publicly opposed the bill and bucked their party’s leadership by lobbying their GOP colleagues to vote against it. Large blocs of Democrats are also expected to vote against the bill, albeit more quietly.
Still, GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry, one in all the negotiators on the deal, told CNBC on Wednesday that he believes the bill has enough votes to pass.
The laws is the results of a deal reached between McCarthy and President Joe Biden, which essentially hands conservatives several ideological policy victories in exchange for his or her votes to lift the debt ceiling beyond next 12 months’s presidential election and into 2025.
Raising the debt ceiling would require that the bill passes each the GOP-majority House and the Democratic-controlled Senate, a reality that made a compromise deal unavoidable.
Most significantly, the bill would avert a potentially catastrophic U.S. debt default that the Treasury Department said will likely occur next week if Congress doesn’t act to lift the nation’s borrowing limit.
House Democrats began their day Wednesday with a closed door caucus meeting, where they were briefed on the bill by White House negotiators, including presidential counselor Steve Ricchetti, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, National Economic Council Deputy Director Aviva Aron-Dine and presidential climate advisor John Podesta.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Wednesday morning that she would vote against the bill on the House floor.
Other groups, just like the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and the center-left Latest Democrat Coalition, have praised the bill.
This can be a developing story, please check back for updates.
