America's Talking - Senate Passes Debt Limit Deal, Sends It to Biden

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

The U.S. Senate voted 63-36 late Thursday to pass the debt limit deal brokered by President Joe Biden and U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. “We may be a little tired, but we did it,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said after the vote. The legislation suspends the nation's debt limit until Jan. 1, 2025, notably after the 2024 presidential election; caps non-defense spending but also limits defense spending increases; and expands work requirements for some of those receiving food stamps, among other things. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan and McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is the Center Square, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper. We are recording this on Friday, June 2nd. Casey late last night, Thursday, June 1st, the U.S. Senate passed a debt-limit increase measure that already passed the House and is now heading to President Joe Biden, who is expected to sign it into law, perhaps as soon as today or the sometimes. on this weekend. Critics of the federal government's overspending say it doesn't do near enough to cut government spending and slow the U.S. is rising debt. Tell us what to make of all this. Yeah, it's kind of unclear what to make of some of it, but we've seen some really interesting alliances forming here, you know, Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders coming out vocally on Twitter agreeing for different reasons. It kind of feels like an old era of Congress, honestly,

where you have, you know, a lot of Republicans voting against something, but then a lot of Democrats voting for it, not at all along party lines, lots of different reasons cited for why people can't vote for things. It kind of feels like we're in this weird time machine back maybe 30 years ago when members of Congress were less partisan, more individualized, and less grid-like like we are now. But regardless of the process, it is passed as going to Biden's desk where he'll almost certainly sign it. He has until June 5th to do so. That's like the deadline that U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has given him to get, you know, given Congress and by extension the

president, to get a debt limit hike in place or risk defaulting on the national debt obligations, which would be really bad for the economy, which would be really bad for, you could think of it like our national credit score, right, which right now we have a perfect credit score, but it would be really bad if we missed a payment is the way to think about it. it. It looks like we're going to avert that now. It could come at some cost to Kevin McCarthy speakership, which we can get into. But you mentioned the criticisms. And there were plenty, as I said, both the Democrats and Republicans were critical. On the Republican side, they said it doesn't cut spending enough. These debt limit increases in a lot of conservative

Republicans' minds are probably their one chance to actually get some spending cuts in place? Because otherwise, we just have this kind of never-ending congressional machine that passes these continuing resolutions that increase the debt. And then when a Democratic majority gets in place, like under Biden's, you know, a Democrat majority gets in place or is able to get some Republicans to work with them, they passed this major spending bill like Biden did with the COVID relief stuff and infrastructure. And so the national debt, which is set to pass 32 trillion this year, just keeps rising and rising. Deficits are, they're a little bit lower than they were the recent years, but overall, they're much higher than they used to be. And it's a pretty dire picture. We're well on our

way to hitting $50 trillion in national debt here pretty soon in the next few years. So it's like, in their mind, you know, this is a runaway train about to head off the cliff and these cuts are more like, it's just not enough to stop the train. It's like a band-aid on a bullet hole in their mind. Republicans in this measure, we'll talk about Speaker McCarthy and the ramifications for him in just a minute. The Republicans did get some concessions in the package, but not near as much as what, for example, the Freedom Caucus wanted or more fiscally conservative. Republicans? What were some of those concessions that they got in the bill? Right. I mean, those concessions were, you know, significant. And from McCarthy's point of view,

he's saying, hey, we're the minority party, guys. Remember, all we have is the House of Representatives. We don't have the White House. We don't have a majority in the Senate. And these conservative Republicans are asking for the moon when we're the minority party. And I think that is probably the best defense of McCarthy in all this. I mean, sure, it would be great for Republicans if they could get some major cuts, but they didn't win the election. So it's pretty hard to do something that drastic. But he was able to get some pretty notable cuts. You know, one thing that has been really controversial, but kind of a pet issue for Republicans has been increasing work requirements for welfare recipients for some food stand recipients. So he was able to get that. There's a cap on

non-defense spending. There is a limit on defense spending increases. You know, different numbers have been thrown around for how many trillion. I've seen $1.5 trillion cuts, but there were spending cuts, but a lot of just spending freezes, trying to go back, a big messaging item for McCarthy and others has been getting it back to, you know, pre-COVID levels or to 2022 spending levels. And I think the mindset for some of these more moderate Republicans is, if we can just stop the spending, we don't have to go back and cut everything. If we can just freeze it long enough, eventually the economy will outgrow the spending and we'll be able to kind of salvage things. So I think that's their mind spent. And so I think freezing a lot of the

spending was a lot of the big wins for McCarthy. Now, let's talk about McCarthy a little bit more And there has been speculation, or critics at least, have said that because Speaker McCarthy made such so many concessions to Democrats, didn't get everything Republicans wanted to get through, that it could jeopardize his speakership, that there could be a vote called to vote in a new house speaker? Is that just speculation? Is there any truth to that? Tell us what you know. Well, it is speculation that something specific would happen, but it's not at all beyond the pale or some wild claim because, I'm sure you remember, Dan, we talked about it at length on this podcast that McCarthy was barely able to get the votes needed to be speaker. Remember, it was day after day after day of these no votes.

It was kind of this wild, unprecedented thing in modern politics. McCarthy had to go in the backroom deals and makes a lot of promises to the more conservative Republicans. And one of the concessions he made to them was that it would only take one member of Congress to who basically could file a motion to remove the speaker. right. And so I would not be surprised at all if, you know, next week there is some coalition of Republicans who are trying to oust McCarthy. They're really upset with him. They feel like he didn't hold the line enough. Some of them, I think, were willing to defaults. And they knew that Democrats did not want to default. And so they were willing, they really wanted to play more hardball. So I think it's definitely a possibility, but that's going to come with its own risks for those

lawmakers because McCarthy does have power over them when it can. comes to different committee assignments when it comes to fundraising. You know, he was definitely at their mercy before he had the role. But the longer he's in that speakership, the more he's able to cement his power, the more he's able to cement his alliance and deepen his authority really within the house and just get entrenched where it's harder and harder to remove him. And it's hard to know for the opposition, those who are disgruntled with McCarthy to say, this is where we draw the line in the sand?

You know, is it this issue or is it on the next one? And so for them to really get unified in their opposition to McCarthy, I think will be difficult. But I wouldn't be surprised if we see at least a few disgruntled lawmakers trying to take McCarthy down. Interesting. And of course, listeners can follow the drama, the ongoing drama at thecentersquare.com. One last question on this topic, Casey, before we close out, a little curious to me, this deal suspends the nation's debt limit until January 1, 2025, which of course is a month and a half after the next presidential election. next year in November of 2024. Is that a coincidence or is there something to that? Oh, Dan, very astute. You see, it seems that with all the bickering, the bipartisan opposition disagreement and speakers almost losing their job, there's one thing that all the lawmakers can

agree on, and that's politics and the election cycle. So yeah, they push this back where it wouldn't threaten them or the presidential election. Not to the credit of some of those conservative lawmakers, they didn't want to do that. They didn't want to push it back so far. They wanted to just push it back a little bit so they could re-have this battle again and get more spending cuts. But for the most part, yeah, that's no coincidence. And I think Biden is probably pretty relieved. He doesn't have to fight this battle all over again. I tend to agree with you there, Casey. Listeners can keep up with the story and more at the center square.com. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McKeel. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.