Senate passes debt limit deal
The bipartisan compromise between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy passed with only 17 Republicans voting yes.
The Senate passed a bipartisan bill on Thursday night, by a 63-36 vote, to avoid a federal debt default and make some federal spending reductions. But a day after Speaker Kevin McCarthy and 148 of his Republican colleagues voted for the bill in the House of Representatives, most Senate Republicans voted no.
Seventeen Senate Republicans and 46 Democratic caucus members voted for the debt limit package, an agreement negotiated by President Joe Biden and McCarthy to suspend the nation’s debt ceiling until the beginning of 2025 and slow the rate of growth for federal discretionary spending.
Thirty-one Republicans and five members of the Democratic caucus voted no.
The GOP opposition to the package came less than a month after 43 of the 49 Republicans in the Senate sided with House Republicans in their effort to tie any debt limit increase to spending cuts.
“The Senate Republican conference is united behind the House Republican conference in support of spending cuts and structural budget reform as a starting point for negotiations on the debt ceiling,” they wrote in a May 6 letter to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
After Biden and McCarthy reached a deal, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell endorsed it in a Sunday press statement that said, “The Senate must act swiftly and pass this agreement without unnecessary delay.”
But McConnell and his GOP colleagues also voted for a series of amendments that would have made additional work requirements for those receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits permanent, shifted IRS modernization funds to the Defense Department, and automatically required even steeper budget cuts if Congress could not agree on spending bills. Had any of the amendments passed, the bill would have had to go back to the House with little time to spare before a possible Monday default.
McCarthy framed the final bill as a victory, tweeting on Wednesday, “The House just passed the biggest spending cut in American history.”
The legislation now goes to Biden for his signature.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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