House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks at a rally marking the one hundredth day of Republican control of the House in Washington D.C. on April 17, 2023.
Nathan Posner | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Wednesday released his plan to lift the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion for a couple of 12 months while attempting to repeal major components of President Joe Biden’s agenda.
McCarthy said the bill, called the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, would save American taxpayers greater than $4.5 trillion by limiting discretionary spending, retrieving unspent pandemic-related funds, eliminating Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan and cutting funds earmarked for the Internal Revenue Service.
The cuts can be in exchange for a one-year debt ceiling increase. McCarthy called on Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to “sit down, negotiate and address this crisis” but he didn’t mention whether the bill has enough support to pass. Biden has refused to barter over the debt limit. Extraordinary measures to avoid the first-ever U.S. sovereign debt default are on target to expire this summer.
“Now that we have introduced a transparent plan for a responsible debt limit increase, they haven’t any more excuse and refuse to barter,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy didn’t say when he would bring the bill to a vote within the House. It still wasn’t clear whether he had support inside his own caucus to pass the bill. “I never hand over, we’ll get them,” he told NBC News on Wednesday.
Even when the House GOP passes it, the Democratic-controlled Senate would likely kill the measure.
McCarthy’s announcement comes after days of speculation in regards to the GOP proposal to temporarily raise the debt limit for certain cutbacks, reminiscent of a stall on non-defense discretionary spending.
The House speaker also doubled down on proposals for stricter work requirements for adults without dependents, the repeal of “Biden’s army of 87,000 IRS agents” and the president’s student loan forgiveness program, which may very well be killed by the Supreme Court. Justices are expected to rule on the coed loan program by early summer.
McCarthy also argued the measures will protect Social Security and Medicare by driving more people into the workforce to pay for it. Yet Democrats say it is going to hurt tens of millions.
“Speaker McCarthy’s proposal shouldn’t be about jobs,” Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., rating member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said after McCarthy’s announcement. “It’s a Trojan Horse intended to make use of red tape and onerous paperwork to kick tens of millions of individuals off their medical health insurance because Republicans don’t imagine in our nation’s social safety net. Republicans are making a debt crisis to justify these cruel plans.”
Republicans’ narrow majority within the House means McCarthy can only afford to lose a handful of GOP votes given Democrats’ opposition.
“Let me be clear, this proposal is dead on arrival,” Pallone said on Wednesday.
The White House has maintained it is going to not negotiate on the debt ceiling and that Congress should pass a clean increase and address any budgetary concerns individually. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday said the administration was aware of McCarthy’s plans to release a proposal but condemned it as playing politics around something that’s Congress’s “duty.”
Biden also took on McCarthy’s strategy Wednesday. “MAGA Republicans in Congress are threatening to default on the national debt, the debt that took 230 years to build up overall, unless we do what they are saying,” the president said in a speech in Maryland.
–CNBC’s Emma Kinery contributed to this report.
