WASHINGTON — House Republicans made post-midnight changes to their sweeping debt ceiling package to win over holdouts, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy pushed ahead Wednesday with plans to launch debate and round up support from his slim majority for a swift vote.
Passage of the sprawling 320-page package in the House would be a turnaround for the embattled McCarthy as the House Republican majority confronts President Joe Biden with demands for spending restrictions and cuts in exchange for approving $1.5 trillion more debt to pay the nation's bills.
While the president has threatened to veto the Republican bill — which would almost surely die in the Senate anyway — McCarthy is challenging Biden with a GOP plan to kickstart negotiations and prevent a potentially catastrophic federal debt default this summer. The two could hardly be further apart on how to resolve the issue.
“We can vote as early as today on this," said Majority Leader Steve Scalise after a morning meeting of House Republicans. “We want to get this done as soon as possible.”
Lawmakers left an early morning private conference meeting of House Republicans saying they were expecting a vote later Wednesday, though some other Republicans said a final roll call could push to Thursday.
In the rush to bring the package forward, changes were approved at a 2 a.m. session of the House Rules Committee despite earlier repeated insistence by McCarthy and his leadership team that there would be no changes.
Facing a revolt from Midwestern Republicans over doing away with biofuel tax credits that were just signed into law last year by Democrat Biden, GOP House members relented and allowed the tax credits to stay on the books in their bill.
Republicans also agreed to more quickly launch the bolstered work requirements for recipients of government aid, starting in 2024 as proposed by another holdout, Freedom Caucus' Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who has led previous challenges to McCarthy.
Republicans hold a five-seat majority and face several absences this week, leaving McCarthy with almost no votes to spare.
“This week, we will pass the bill on this floor,” McCarthy told reporters late Tuesday.
Democrats have criticized the package over what Biden calls “wacko” Republican ideas and the “same old trickle-down” economics favored by the GOP, now “only worse.” In the Senate, where Democrats have the majority, they say the Republican plan it is dead on arrival.
The top Democrat on the House Rules panel, Rep. Jim McGovern, derided the “midnight seance" that produced the final package, particularly “cruelly” imposing stricter work requirements on recipients of food stamps and other government aid.
“Taking food away from people is a rotten thing to do,” said McGovern of Massachusetts in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Still, McCarthy is using the exercise as a political strategy to shake up the debate. Biden has so far refused to engage with House Republicans on what the White House calls “hostage taking” over the debt ceiling. McCarthy hopes passage will kickstart talks with Democrats.
But McCarthy acknowledged after closed-door meetings late Tuesday that not all House Republicans were fully on board with the proposal. He insisted that passing this bill would be merely a starting point for negotiations with Biden and Democrats, and not the final product.
“There’s a number of members that will vote for it going forward and say there are some concerns they have,” he said. But he said they will also say they are ready to vote anyway: “They want to make sure the negotiation goes forward.”
It’s a first big test for the president and the Republican speaker, coming at a time of increased political anxiety about the need to raise the federal debt limit, now at $31 trillion, to keep paying the country’s already accrued debts.
The Treasury Department is taking “extraordinary measures” to pay the bills, but funding is expected to run out this summer. Economists and experts warn that even the threat of a federal debt default would send shockwaves through the economy.
In exchange for raising the debt limit by $1.5 trillion into 2024, the bill would rollback federal spending to fiscal 2022 levels and cap future spending increases at 1% a year for the next decade.
The package would also impose tougher work requirements on recipients of food stamps and government aid, halt Biden’s plans to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans and end the landmark renewable energy tax breaks Biden signed into law last year. It would tack on a sweeping Republican bill to boost oil, gas and coal production.
A nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis released Tuesday showed the Republican plan would reduce federal deficits by $4.8 trillion over the decade if the proposed changes were enacted into law.
Sourse: abcnews.go.com
