The New York Times revealed the full legislative text of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s agreement with US President Joe Biden on suspending the debt limit.
According to the newspaper, the centerpiece of the agreement remains a two-year suspension of the debt ceiling, which caps the total amount of money the government is allowed to borrow. Suspending that cap, which is now set at $31.4 trillion, would allow the government to keep borrowing money and pay its bills on time as long as Congress passes the agreement before June 5, when Treasury has said the United States will run out of cash.
In exchange for suspending the limit, Republicans demanded a range of policy concessions from Biden. Chief among them are limits on the growth of federal discretionary spending over the next two years. Biden also agreed to some new work requirements for certain recipients of food stamps and the Temporary Aid for Needy Families program, according to The New York Times.
The bill cuts so-called nondefense discretionary, which includes domestic law enforcement, forest management, scientific research and more for the 2024 fiscal year. It would limit all discretionary spending to 1 percent growth in 2025, which is effectively a budget cut, because that is projected to be slower than the rate of inflation.
Legislative text suggests nondefense discretionary outside of veterans programs would shrink in 2024 to about last years spending levels. But White House officials say a series of side deals with Republicans, including one related to funding for the Internal Revenue Service, will allow actual funding to be closer to this years levels.
The White House estimates that the agreement will yield $1 trillion in savings over the course of a decade from reduced discretionary spending.
Also, the Wall Street Journal said that the House won’t take up the bill for a vote until Wednesday, part of an agreement McCarthy made to give lawmakers 72 hours to read the text before voting on a bill.
The legislation’s first test comes on Tuesday, when it goes before the House Rules Committee, which acts as gatekeeper for legislation coming onto the House floor.
The newspaper said that already, two conservative Republicans on the committee, Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, have said they oppose the deal. Nevertheless, there was still the possibility of obtaining adequate support for the transition through the Rules Committee, which would examine today’s legislation.
McCarthy could not lose more than four House Republican votes before he needed Democratic support to pass the legislation.
For his part, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CBS News that Republicans had committed to provide at least 150 votes in favor of the deal. Democrats would need to make up the balance to reach the 218-vote threshold typically necessary for passage.
Since the agreement was struck late Saturday, White House staff have held individual calls with more than 60 House Democrats and emphasized in these conversations that the compromise largely preserves domestic spending at its current levels, the Wall Street Journal quoted people familiar with the outreach as saying.
Some Democrats broadcast their support for the deal, but the newspaper saw that if the proposed bill does clear the House on Wednesday, it will face a compressed timeline in the Senate where passage could take days. This would lead to the risk that the bill could be passed after the deadline to prevent default on debt on June 5.
A strong bipartisan vote in the House likely would help smooth the way for quicker Senate passage, congressional aides said, which would send the bill to Biden for signing.
Source: Qatar News Agency
