Skepticism toward debt ceiling negotiations abounds Left and Right
Reese Gorman
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As House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), President Joe Biden, and their teams continue negotiating on a debt ceiling bill, the most liberal and conservative lawmakers express skepticism toward whatever compromise comes from negotiations.
Members of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus and the left-wing Congressional Progressive Caucus have expressed concern about what their respective parties are willing to compromise on in the debt ceiling negotiations.
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McCarthy and his allies have expressed confidence they will be able to keep the Republican Conference together on whatever compromise comes out of the debt ceiling negotiations with the White House.
“I don’t think so,” said Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) and an ally of the speaker when asked if they could lose Republicans on the compromise bill. “I think most members have seen the success of hanging together.”
But members in the Freedom Caucus have expressed they don’t want to see anything less than the spending caps and cuts made in the Limit, Save, Grow Act, the bill House Republicans passed to raise the debt ceiling in late April. So a compromise bill with fewer cuts and caps might not be acceptable for some of them.
Chairman of the Freedom Caucus Scott Perry (R-PA), who voted for the House’s original debt ceiling bill, said that “generally speaking,” members of his caucus will accept the bill the House previously passed.
“We passed our bill,” Perry said. “We already said what we’re willing to do. That’s what was passed.”
Other members of the Freedom Caucus, who, like Perry, voted for the debt ceiling bill, expressed skepticism toward voting in favor of a watered-down package that comes out of the White House negotiations.
“It was hard for me to vote for that one,” said Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ), a freshman member in the Freedom Caucus. “So that’s where I’m at.”
Fellow Freedom Caucus freshman Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK) said that whatever the compromise is, he has to know that it will give the country a chance to turn away from a fiscal deficit.
To consider voting for a compromise debt ceiling bill, he would need to see real, thoughtful spending cuts that made a difference in pulling back government spending.
“How do you eat an elephant-sized problem one bite at a time?” Brecheen said. “If it’s just nibbling, I’m out. If it’s a bite, and we get in the habit of cutting, that’s a different deal.”
Four Republicans voted against raising the debt ceiling in late April. And in a narrowly divided Congress, McCarthy can only afford to lose four members of his conference on votes that don’t garner Democratic support.
One of those no-votes was Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who said in a statement at the time he voted against the bill because it didn’t do enough to curb government spending.
The opposite is true for progressives. The farther left members of the House Democratic Caucus are adamantly opposed to adding work requirements to welfare services in the debt ceiling bill, something McCarthy said is a must.
Biden originally came out in support of work requirements but has since backtracked. But progressives aren’t relenting in voicing their opposition to the idea.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the public “didn’t elect Joe Biden in 1986 or 1996. We elected Joe Biden of 2020,” referring to the president’s past votes for work requirements while he was a senator.
“We’re talking about even more extreme cuts to people at a very difficult time in this country,” Jayapal told reporters on Tuesday.
Since Republicans control the House, for the debt ceiling to be raised, Biden is going to have to negotiate and come to a compromise with them on spending cuts and likely some form of work requirement.
Earlier on Wednesday, Biden did seem to leave the door open to some form of work requirements being added to the compromise, but he doesn’t want anything beyond what he voted for as senator in the 1990s.
“I’m not going to accept any work requirements that are going to impact the medical health needs of people,” Biden told reporters as he left for the G-7 Summit. “It’s possible there could be a few, but not anything of consequence.”
But according to Jayapal, any debt ceiling bill that includes work requirements or major spending cuts would be met with strong opposition from members of her caucus. She believes the president should stand strong and not cede too much ground to Republicans in any compromise debt ceiling bill.
“Work requirements do not work, and spending cuts are absolutely the wrong thing for this for this moment,” she said. “And all of this is hostage-taking because Republicans can’t get these extreme ideas into the budget when they’re able to negotiate, so they’re trying to take us hostage and throw the economy into default.”
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Negotiators for McCarthy and Biden continue to meet to come up with a deal on the debt ceiling that will likely look different than what House Republicans passed in April.
On Tuesday, the president and the speaker appointed negotiators on their behalf to come to an agreement. For McCarthy, it’s Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) and members of his staff. For Biden, it’s Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Steve Ricchetti, a close adviser to the president.