The House Rules Committee on Tuesday cleared by one vote—7 to 6—the negotiated bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a Monday default deadline.
President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced the deal Saturday night.
Passing the agreement in the House Rules Committee was not an assumed rubber stamp as is usually case when legislation is approved by party leaders.
The committee, which includes nine Republicans and four Democrats in the GOP-led chamber went into Tuesday’s meeting with at least one far-right holdout on the committee—Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX)—working to scuttle the debt agreement.
Roy, along with Rep. Norman Ralph Norman (R-SC) voted against the bill.
Having overcome that first hurdle, the legislation now moves to the full House where it needs a majority of 218 “yes” votes from the 435 Congress members before moving to the Senate, where Republican leadership is telling CBS News they’re “bullish” about passing the deal.
But first, it still faces a potential revolt among House Republicans, not just from Roy and Norman but from other members of the far right-leaning Freedom Caucus as well.
And on the left side of the aisle, the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), said Sunday that Democratic leaders “should worry” that they don’t have the support of her caucus’ 101 members—all but one of whom are in the House.
Even so, McCarthy on Sunday predicted he would have the support of a majority of his fellow Republicans while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said he also expected Democratic support.
House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) told Fox News on Tuesday that his team was “whipping [votes] every day…We whip for 218. We don’t whip for 150.”
The deal raises the debt ceiling beyond next year’s presidential election into 2025. It also caps spending in the 2024 and 2025 budgets, claws back unused Covid pandemic funds, speeds up the permitting process for some energy projects, and include extra work requirements for aid programs like food stamps, though overall funding is mostly held flat for domestic programs.
On Friday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen revised her earlier deadline, now saying the government has until next Monday, June 5, before it completely runs out of money if the debt ceiling is not raised.
That’s after the Treasury undertook “extraordinary measures” for the past four months to prevent default when the U.S. reached its $31.4 trillion debt limit on January 19.
According to Yellen, not raising the ceiling and defaulting the government’s debt would spell economic “catastrophe” for the country.
“Household payments on mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards would rise, and American businesses would see credit markets deteriorate,” she said in April.
Wall Street analysts have further noted that a stock market plunge as a result of debt default could wipe out 6 million jobs and $15 trillion in wealth.
