‘Republicans Took This President Hostage’: Both Sides Claim Victory in Debt-ceiling Deal
Democrats save McCarthy after members of the speaker's party balked
The federal debt-ceiling deal which won approval Wednesday in the House is proving to be something of a political Rorschach test, as Democrats and Republicans both either claimed a win or vilified the agreement, depending on which lawmaker you might be listening to at any given moment.
Further, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy lost control of his own Republican members as the bill advanced, and had to learn on Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and other Democrats to advance the measure to a final vote.
The debt ceiling bill ratifies the agreement McCarthy had struck over the weekend with President Biden in order to approve the needed increase in the government's debt limit.
The legislation would raise the debt ceiling to allow the government to continue to pay its bills, while enacting some of the spending cuts McCarthy and other House Republicans insisted on in order to agree to that debt-limit increase.
Without a debt-ceiling increase, the government soon would have run out of ways to pay its bills, causing a default and triggering a wider economic meltdown.
Some Democrats and Republicans hailed the deal as a stroke of adult bipartisanship in a time of divided government and others railed against it as a sell-out to their respective principles.
Some 52 Democratic votes were needed to bring the debt ceiling bill to the floor for the bill's survival after 29 Republicans voted against moving it forward Wednesday afternoon. The bill eventually was approved on a 314-117 vote.
McCarthy claimed the bill would “make history.”
“I wanted to do something no other Congress has done. That we would literally turn the ship. That for the first time in quite some time we'd spend less than we spent the year before,” the California Republican said. “Tonight, we all made history. Because this is the biggest cut and savings this Congress has ever voted for.”
Across the aisle, Jefferies said that he supported the legislation “without hesitation, reservation or trepidation.”
“We just completed a caucus meeting with the White House negotiators and presenters, and it was very thoughtful, comprehensive, clear-eyed discussion about the moment that we are in, and, of course, about the importance of avoiding a catastrophic default. In that meeting, I made clear that I’m going to support the legislation that is on the floor today and that I support it without hesitation, reservation or trepidation,” the Democratic leader said. “Not because it’s perfect, but in divided government, we, of course, cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
“And President Biden did an incredibly good job under difficult circumstances in protecting some key priorities and values for the well-being of the American people,” he added.
The deal is better than what Democrats could have ended up with, according to former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki, now a host on MSNBC.
“I would say, though, with this debt limit deal, specifically, which is — yes, there are things that progressives in the party, Ro Khanna, others don't like — a very good deal for Joe Biden considering what the options would have been,” she said.
Others, on both sides of the aisle, criticized the deal, however.
Khanna, the California Democrat, said that he would vote against the bill to raise the debt limit and criticized it because people are going to have to start repaying their student loans and that “at a time where the climate crisis is there, we shouldn’t be just giving a green light to constructing the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”
The Mountain Valley Pipeline project is a natural gas pipeline system that spans approximately 303 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern North Carolina. The debt-ceiling deal also would expedit approval of all permits needed to complete the pipeline.
However, even an opponent like Khanna gave Biden credit.
“I think the Republicans took this president hostage. This president did the absolute best he could under the circumstance, the deal could have been much worse. But there are many Democrats who do not want to reward the Republicans running roughshod over the Constitution,” he said.
Republican Rep Nancy Mace, of South Carolina, blasted the agreement.
“I'm very much sort of small ‘l’ libertarian, I'm fiscally conservative, I socially am sensible. Some people call me a moderate — I say centrist — but I’ve always been fiscally conservative. And when I read it and I read the fine print, it's literally not worth the paper it’s printed on because there’s so many ways to get around the caps,” she said.
Right-wing Rep Andy Biggs (R-Ariz) found something sinister with McCarthy's openness to work with Democrats, calling the speaker's “new coalition” with Democrats “really concerning” to House Republicans.
Please support our work…
Also, please subscribe…