WASHINGTON (AP) — To avoid a U.S. default, the Senate gave final approval Thursday to one debt ceiling package and budget cutsworking late into the night to finish work on the bipartisan deal and send it to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law before the fast-approaching deadline.
The compromise package negotiated between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy leaves neither Republicans nor Democrats satisfied with the outcome. But the outcome, after weeks of hard-fought budget negotiations, sidesteps the volatile debt ceiling issue that was at risk. changing the global and US economy until 2025 after the next presidential election.
The Senate’s passage on a bipartisan vote, 63-36, mirrored the House’s overwhelming account the day before, relying on centrists in both parties to pass the Biden-McCarthy package.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the bill’s passage means “America can breathe a sigh of relief.”
He said, “We are avoiding default.”
Quick action was vital if Washington hoped to rally the deadline next Monday, when the Treasury has said the US will start running out of cash to pay its bills, risking a devastating default. Raising the nation’s debt limit, now $31.4 trillion, would ensure that the Treasury could borrow to pay off already incurred U.S. debts.
In the end, the debt-ceiling showdown was a regular battle in Congress, a fight taken up by McCarthy and pushed by a right-wing House Republican majority that pitted the Democratic president against a new era of divided government in Washington. .
Refusing a routine vote to allow the nation’s debt limit to be raised without concessions, McCarthy brought the Biden White House to the negotiating table for a deal that would force spending cuts with the ‘objective of curbing the nation’s deficits.
Generally, the 99-page bill restrains spending over the next two years, suspends the debt ceiling until January 2025 and changes some policies, including imposing new work requirements for older Americans receiving food assistance i green light an Appalachian natural gas line which many Democrats oppose.
Boost funding for defense and veterans, cut new money for Internal Revenue Service agents and rejects Biden’s call to roll back Trump-era tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy to help cover the nation’s deficits. It imposes automatic 1% cuts if Congress fails to pass its annual spending bills.
After the House overwhelmingly approved the package late Wednesday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell signaled that he, too, wanted to waste no time in making sure it becomes law.
With his budget cuts, McConnell said Thursday, “The Senate has an opportunity to make this important progress a reality.”
Having remained largely on the sidelines for much of the Biden-McCarthy negotiations, several senators insisted on debating their ideas for reshaping the package. But making any changes at this stage would almost certainly derail the compromise and none were passed.
Instead, senators dragged out rounds of votes late into the night rejecting the various amendments but making their preferences clear. Conservative Republican senators wanted to include more spending cuts, while Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia tried to kill approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
The energy pipeline is important to Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., and he defended the development that crosses his state, saying the country cannot function without energy from gas, coal, wind and all sources of energy available.
But offering an amendment to take the pipeline out of the package, Kaine argued it wouldn’t be fair for Congress to step into a controversial project that he said would also pass through his state and take land in Appalachia that has been in families for generations . .
Defense hawks led by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina complained strongly that military spending, while increased by the deal, was not enough to keep pace with inflation, especially as they consider supplemental spending that will be needed this summer to support Ukraine against the war. made by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin’s invasion is a defining moment of the 21st century,” Graham argued from the Senate. “What the House did is wrong.”
They secured an agreement from Schumer, which he read on the floor, stating that the debt ceiling deal “does nothing” to limit the Senate’s ability to approve other supplemental emergency funding for national security, including for Ukraine, or for disaster relief and other matters. of national importance.
For weeks, negotiators worked late into the night to reach a deal with the White House, and for days McCarthy had worked to win support among skeptics.
Tensions had risen in the House the night before, as far-right Republicans rejected the deal. Ominously, conservatives warned they might try to oust McCarthy over the issue.
But Biden and McCarthy assembled a bipartisan coalition, with Democrats securing passage by a strong 314-117 vote. In all, 71 House Republicans broke with McCarthy to reject the deal.
“We did pretty well,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said afterward.
As for the displeasure of Republicans who said the spending restrictions did not go far enoughMcCarthy said it was just a “first step.”
The White House immediately turned its attention to the Senate, its top staff calling individual senators.
Democrats also had complaints, decrying new work requirements for older Americans, those ages 50 to 54, in the food assistance program, changes to the landmark National Environmental Policy Act and passage of the controversial natural gas project of the Mountain Valley pipeline that they argue is not helpful in fighting climate change.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the package’s spending restrictions would reduce deficits by $1.5 trillion over the decade, a key goal for Republicans trying to rein in the debt burden.
In a surprise that complicated Republican support, however, the CBO said it would prevail work requirements for older Americans receiving food stamps it would end up increasing spending by $2.1 billion over the time period. That’s because the final deal exempts veterans and the homeless, expanding food stamp rolls by 78,000 people a month, the CBO said.
AP White House correspondent Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
