Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer pushed through legislation on Thursday waiving the nation’s debt limit until January 2025, overcoming obstacles put up by defense hawks, deficit hardliners, and even environmentalist Democrats.
Late in the evening, the Senate comfortably passed the debt limit deal struck by President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, mostly doing so with Democratic votes.
The 63-36 vote came only days before the June 5 deadline by which Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had warned the debt limit must be raised to avert a first-ever default on the nation’s ability to pay its debts.
“America can breathe a sigh of relief,” said Mr. Schumer, New York Democrat. “For all the ups and downs and twists and turns it took to get here, it is so good for this country that both parties have come together at last to avoid default.”
The legislation now heads to Mr. Biden’s desk for his promised signature.
The bill made its way through the upper chamber with votes from Mr. Schumer’s ranks, and mostly Republicans in dissent. GOP senators voted 31-17 against the bill, while 46 of the Senate’s 51 Democrats backed the legislation.
The five Democratic Caucus dissidents were Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
Its passage marks the end of a nearly six-month stand-off between the president and House Republicans.
Mr. Biden initially refused to negotiate on raising the debt ceiling in the face of Republican calls for spending cuts. The position held for over 100 days, but the White House relented once a hard deadline had been set by the Treasury Department.
The agreement hatched by Mr. Biden and Mr. McCarthy would waive the $31.4 trillion debt limit until after the 2024 presidential election — giving both sides some breathing room.
It would also claw back billions of dollars in unspent pandemic relief and cut IRS funding by more than $20 billion over two years.
Mr. Biden secured a win by keeping domestic spending flat for the upcoming fiscal year in the face of GOP calls for at least $130 billion in immediate cuts. Both sides found bipartisan agreement on boosting defense spending by more than $26 billion.
Republicans scored a victory by forcing Mr. Biden to agree to cap the growth of federal spending at 1% next year.
“We used the power we had to force the president to negotiate,” said Mr. McCarthy, California Republican. “We produced a bill that in divided government takes a step toward smaller government, less regulation, more economic growth, and more take-home pay.”
The agreement further expands work requirements for recipients of food stamps and direct cash payments until 2030.
Able-bodied, childless recipients of each program 54 and younger would have to work at least 20 hours per week to keep their benefits. They also would be subject to new restrictions for how long they can collect the benefits.
The deal excludes veterans and the homeless from the work requirements while expanding their food-stamp benefits.
While the new restrictions would save taxpayer money, the expanded benefits for veterans and the homeless would cause overall spending for food stamps to increase. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the changes would cost taxpayers an additional $2.1 billion over the next decade.
“This agreement is good news for the American people and the American economy,” Mr. Biden said. “It protects key priorities and accomplishments from the past two years, including historic investments that are creating good jobs across the country.”
Apart from expanding work requirements, the deal institutes a pay-as-you-go provision requiring Mr. Biden to offset rules or regulations that increase federal spending with an equal amount of spending cuts or tax increases.
Mr. McCarthy has hailed the pay-go inclusion a win, but GOP critics note that legislation allows the White House Office of Management and Budget to waive it if necessary for efficiency. The bill further states that OMB’s waiver cannot be challenged by the courts.
While Mr. Schumer did not have a hand in crafting the deal, the majority leader worked hard to quell opposition to expediting its passage.
The task was made all the harder because Mr. Schumer had no leeway to make any substantive change to the bill and still assure its passage before June 5, which is this coming Monday.
Any amendment adopted by the Senate would have forced the bill back to the House for approval, scuttling Washington’s ability to meet the June 5 deadline. It was also unclear if another version of the bill could have passed in the narrowly-divided House given strong opposition from both left and right.
“Any change to this bill that forces us to send it back to the House would be entirely unacceptable,” Mr. Schumer said. “It would almost guarantee default.”
That reality hit up against the Senate’s longstanding rules and precedents. An agreement is needed among all 100 senators to expedite the consideration of a bill.
Mr. Schumer mollified opponents with side deals and show votes on amendments in exchange for passing the deal late Thursday.
Overall, Mr. Schumer agreed to vote on 11 amendments, but largely requiring the 60-vote threshold that would assure their defeat.
The biggest group Mr. Schumer worked to win over were defense hawks like Sen. Lindsey Graham, who blamed House Republicans for raising defense spending enough in the debt-limit deal.
Mr. Schumer agreed to advance a supplemental military funding bill at a later date.
“For three days, I and some others have been screaming to high Heaven that what the House did was wrong,” said Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican. “It’s right to want to control spending, and there’s some good things in this bill. But it was wrong to give a defense number inconsistent with the threats we face.”
Senators from both sides, particularly defense hawks, were also upset with the deal’s provision for a 1% cut across the entire federal government if Congress fails to pass into law its annual budget by Jan. 1.
The last time Congress approved a budget on time without and did not require a stop-gap funding measure was 1996.
Senators said an across-the-board cut would severely weaken America’s military and its capacity to aid Ukraine. Republicans also feared the threat could be used as leverage for Democrats to push for more social welfare spending in the appropriations process.
“This bill contains an automatic 1% sequester based off last year’s budget,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican. “That means that domestic spending will go up and defense spending will go down if the sequester kicks in.”
The military supplemental deal struck between Mr. Graham and Mr. Schumer would not only include more money for Ukraine, but also ensure the Pentagon is not subject to the 1% cut if government funding does not get passed on time.
Mr. Schumer also faced a rebellion from fellow Democrats over the debt limit deal’s energy provisions.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia threatened to delay consideration of the deal unless the Senate voted on an amendment stripping out the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
The long-stalled, $6.6 billion natural-gas project is set to run 303 miles from northern West Virginia through southern Virginia.
The venture is a pet project of Sen. Joe Manchin III, a West Virginia Democrat who was instrumental in letting Mr. Biden’s climate-change law pass last year.
“I support improving the permitting process for all energy projects,” Mr. Kaine said. “But Congress putting its thumb on the scale so that one specific project doesn’t have to comply with the same process as everyone else is the definition of unfair and opens the door to corruption.”
Mr. Schumer allowed a vote on Mr. Kaine’s amendment, which was defeated by a simple majority.
The majority leader also allowed an amendment vote from Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, to gut the debt limit deal and replace it with a bill to cut 5% from federal spending every year through 2028.
The vote on Mr. Paul’s amendment was enough to get conservative hardliners to relinquish their hold on the deal.
For days, budget-hawk Republicans had grumbled that the deal struck by Mr. McCarthy was insufficient in cutting spending and lowering the national debt.
Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican, accused the House GOP of over-hyping the narrative that they reined in spending. He suggested many rank-and-file Republicans took leadership at its word without doing their “own due diligence” to study the deal.
“Once their own party’s leadership gives their seal of approval and says either, ‘I’m OK with this,’ or ‘I liked this and I want you to vote for this,’ a lot of members will salute and step up and do it because they’re told to do it, believing that it does what they’re told that it does,” Mr. Lee said.
“I think far too many people in the House did that without doing their own due diligence,” he said.
• Haris Alic can be reached at halic@washingtontimes.com.
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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