(RepublicanNews.org) – Even though Democrats are refusing to agree to spending cuts, House Republicans say they’re confident that Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s bill to raise the debt ceiling will pass.
The bill both raises the country’s borrowing limit by $1.5 trillion (until March 2024) and caps government spending at 2022 levels. President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have refused to negotiate with the GOP over spending reductions that Republicans want to attach to the bill.
A House GOP aide told Fox News they are confident the bill will pass, even if “Joe Biden sits on his hands”, and despite reservations from some Republican lawmakers.
This week maverick Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia chastised President Biden for failing to meet with Speaker McCarthy for 78 days (at that time). He said the President was showing a failure of leadership.
For the bill to pass with only Republican support, all but four Republican Senators will have to vote for it. The bill is 320 pages long and some lawmakers who remain undecided say they need the coming weekend to read it.
The “Limit, Save, Grow Act” would cap discretionary government spending (everything that is not an entitlement program such as social security) to the levels set in 2022. It also limits spending growth to 1% per year, and it eliminates one of the Democrats’ projects, student loan forgiveness.
The bill is not going through the traditional committee markup process before it gets a floor vote. Sources inside the GOP leadership told the media the bill needs to move quickly to avoid a potential default on the debt the U.S. owes.
President Biden seems unconcerned about a potential default, which Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin warned earlier this year could happen by June if the U.S. runs out of cash. Biden told Speaker McCarthy he will not renegotiate the debt ceiling using this process, and that he thinks Congress should raise it without the limits McCarthy wants to be built into the bill.
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