With a US default projected for Monday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has precious little time to convince several GOP holdouts to come around and vote for a debt ceiling deal that’s been widely panned by several conservatives.
McCarthy’s team thinks they can avoid disaster at today’s House Rules Committee at 3pm ET today, however Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX), Ralph Norman (R-SC), and Thomas Massie (R-KY) – three conservatives who serve on the panel – may not vote for the rule which allows the Fiscal Responsibility Act to come to the floor, Punchbowl News reports.
All three have expressed reservations about the bill – however Massie may still back the rule, making him the ‘key figure in today’s drama,’ according to Punchbowl. Of note, there are nine Republicans and four Democrats on the panel – so if Roy and Norman vote ‘no’ then Massie needs to vote ‘yes’ for the bill to survive.
Keep in mind this fascinating exchange Massie had with reporters four months ago. Our friend Erik Wasson of Bloomberg asked the Kentucky Republican if he would be “a firewall” on the Rules Committee to make sure a clean debt-limit increase never made it onto the floor. Here’s Massie:
Meanwhile, House Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry (R-PA) is holding a press conference today too.
Here’s the schedule of events.
12:00ET – The conservative hard-liners in the House Freedom Caucus will hold a news conference outside the Capitol to rally opposition to the deal
15:00ET – The House Rules Committee will meet to prepare the bill for floor action.
18:30ET – The House will hold votes on unrelated bills, giving whips in both parties their first chance to count votes in person.
19:30ET – House Republican leaders will host a closed-door conference meeting, where they will discuss the debt deal. GOP leadership feels that the preliminary CBO score – $2.1 trillion in savings over the six-year life of the included caps – is something they can get behind. That said, after two years, the remaining four years of caps can be waived.
TOMORROW • 09:00ET – House Democrats will meet in a closed-door caucus meeting where they will hear from White House officials.
McCarthy’s plan will be to argue that no other bill can save the federal government as much money as the current package, and that Biden never wanted to negotiate in the first place.
Assuming the legislation makes it to the floor, “it’s all about the math,” reports Fox News‘ Chad Pergram, who one GOP source said things are “not that great right now.”
B) They may still get there. But the number of GOPers who may vote yes could be significantly lower than that.
When asked how the vote count was looking, one senior House GOP source replied “not that great right now.”
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) May 30, 2023
Pergram was told that there are quite a few undecided votes, but that Republicans should be able to score well over a majority of their majority. That said, fewer Republicans ‘yes’ votes of course means that Democrats will need to make up the difference – which is a big if.
E) Republicans don’t believe the PAYGO provisions go far enough. Plus, they wanted a more significant clawback of IRS money.
Again, the key to this having the right cocktail of Democratic and Republican votes to pass the bill.
What that looks like is anyone’s guess.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) May 30, 2023
Needless to say, Rep. Clyde is a ‘no’ at this point.
Fib: The “Fiscal Irresponsibility Act” eliminates funding for Joe Biden’s army of IRS agents.
Fact: The disastrous deal only cuts $1,389,525,000.
We promised to nix the $80 BILLION Democrats appropriated to the weaponized IRS. So much for protecting American taxpayers. #NoDeal pic.twitter.com/ncTwlMpT4q
— Rep. Andrew Clyde (@Rep_Clyde) May 30, 2023
Chiming in on the debt deal was Florida Governor and 2024 Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, who told Fox and Friends that it was “totally inadequate.”
“Prior to this deal, Kayleigh, our country was careening toward bankruptcy and after this deal, our country will still be careening toward bankruptcy,” DeSantis told guest host Kayleigh McEnany. “To say you can do $4 trillion of increases in the next year and a half, I mean, that is massive amount of spending.”
“I think that we’ve gotten ourselves on a trajectory, really since March of 2020 with some of the COVID spending and totally reset the budget and they are sticking with that and I think that is totally inadequate to get us in a better spot.”
Our country is careening toward bankruptcy, and after this debt ceiling “deal” it will still be careening toward bankruptcy. The deal green lights $4 trillion in new debt over the next year and a half, locks in inflated levels of spending from COVID, and keeps 98% of the Biden… pic.twitter.com/UAED0GWVVA
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) May 29, 2023
More via Punchbowl:
Senate Democratic communications directors were briefed on messaging strategy by the White House Monday night, we’re told.
The briefing emphasized that “not everyone gets what they want,” according to one readout, a bid to counter progressive ire. A big focus was the White House’s view that Biden’s negotiators successfully blocked the most dangerous GOP provisions from getting into the legislation.
The Senate is in a holding pattern until the House sends the bill over following the Wednesday vote. In the meantime, it’s worth remembering that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer might have to relent to demands to hold amendment votes in order to speed passage of the bill.
Case in point: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is filing an amendment to strip the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline approval from the legislation. A Kaine spokesperson said the provision, sought by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Republicans, “is completely unrelated to the debt ceiling.”
No. 5: Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, sent lawmakers a “fact sheet” sharply criticizing the permitting reform provisions in the debt-limit bill.
It’s unusual, to say the least, to have a senior member of the president’s own party criticize a package he crafted in such a public way. But as we noted, a lot of progressives don’t like this bill.
As for the Treasury market, the Fear-o-Meter is down and holding, however the T-bill curve still has some indigestion as things come down to the wire.
Check back for updates…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/30/2023 – 09:30
