House Republicans were still trying Tuesday to ensure they had enough votes to pass a massive spending cut bill as their opening bid in a fight with the White House over raising the government’s debt limit.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters late in the day that he thought the bill would still pass this week but acknowledged there were wrinkles that needed to be ironed out.
“This week we will pass a bill on this floor that will lift the debt ceiling — something the Senate has not done, something the president has not negotiated — and send it over to the Senate,” McCarthy said.
Asked how he would ensure passage while also vowing to make no changes to the bill to win over needed GOP votes, McCarthy said, “The same way we’ve done it every week when you talk to me about every other bill we bring to the floor.
“Remember what this bill is: This bill is to get us to the negotiating table. It’s not the final provisions, and there’s a number of members who will vote for it going forward to say there’s some concerns there.”
To Be Watered Down?
Holding a 222-213 margin in the House, McCarthy can lose only four Republican votes and still be able to pass the bill if all the representatives show up and vote along party lines. However, one Democratic member, Dan Kildee (Mich.), is expected to be out all week as he recovers from cancer surgery, meaning the Democratic vote would top out at 212.
When the day began, Republicans had hoped for a smooth process in which the bill would go through the Rules Committee on Tuesday and be on the floor Wednesday. But McCarthy’s remarks cast doubt on that timeline.
Potential cracks in the GOP lines persisted. A group of ethanol proponents was reportedly upset with the bill’s cancellation of many green tax breaks. Others were concerned the bill did not go far enough in its cuts or it would get watered down.
“My question is, is this what leadership is going to demand from the Senate, or are we going to get something watered down?” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told HuffPost. Norman was one of a group of House Republicans who voted against McCarthy becoming speaker until he agreed to a list of their policy demands.
“It’s a good bill, to be honest with you. It does a lot of what the 20 of us did in January, but they’re going to have to follow through on it.”
“My question is, is this what leadership is going to demand from the Senate, or are we going to get something watered down?”
- Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)
Some were publicly noncommittal, though likely for different reasons.
“I have a lot of questions,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), the co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, who is seen as a moderate in the party.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said he was “ecumenical on the changes being discussed” but otherwise declined to disclose his stance. Massie has a deep libertarian streak and has taken to wearing a digital counter in his jacket pocket that tracks the national debt.
Fewer Medicaid, Food Assistance Recipients
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill would cut the budget deficit by $4.8 trillion over 11 years, with the bulk of that savings coming from caps the bill would place on the annual funding voted on by lawmakers. If adhered to, the caps would cut about $3.2 trillion from the pool of yearly appropriations to agencies including the Pentagon, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The bill’s savings would be even larger, but it includes one provision that would boost the deficit: taking back money the Internal Revenue Service was given to hire more than 80,000 new employees. Because the IRS was expected to get more money through tougher enforcement of tax laws with more manpower, taking the money back for those workers would mean the government would lose out on $191 billion over 11 years, the CBO said.
The CBO said other parts of the bill, meant to impose new or additional work requirements on some recipients of Medicaid and food assistance, would mean reductions in the number of people on those programs.
It estimated that Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor, would see 600,000 lose their coverage. About 275,000 people, on average, would lose eligibility for food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program each month, and 19,000 more would see their benefits reduced, the CBO said.
The bill would suspend the debt limit until March 31, 2024, or until the Treasury had used $1.5 trillion in borrowing authority, whichever arrived earlier.
Boost From Deficit Hawks
The bill, if it passes the House, would almost certainly not become law given the Democrats’ hold on the Senate and the threat of President Joe Biden’s veto pen. But if it did, the effect on the economy would be harmful compared with passage of a clean debt limit bill, according to a report by Moody’s Analytics, a financial analysis firm.
“While the economy skirts recession in both scenarios, recession risks are uncomfortably high, with a consensus of economists and many investors and business executives expecting a downturn beginning late this year or early next. The timing of the government spending cuts in [the bill] is thus especially inopportune as it would meaningfully increase the likelihood of such a downturn,” the company said.
The bill did get a boost from the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which said the proposed spending cuts should be seen in light of a run-up in appropriations since 2017. The cuts in annual spending would still leave it in 2024 at about $125 billion above what former President Donald Trump had proposed in his final budget.
“These caps are aggressive but reasonable and achievable assuming lawmakers consider all parts of the discretionary budget when meeting these caps,” the deficit hawk group said.
Additional reporting was provided by Arthur Delaney.