House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sounded confident that Congress would vote to avert a default on the US’s obligations on Sunday, hours after news broke that the White House had reached a deal with Republican leadership to raise the debt ceiling.
The “agreement in principle” was announced on Saturday evening after much of the House of Representatives and Senate had left for the Memorial Day weekend. A handful remained in Washington to continue negotiations ahead of the deadline; the US Treasure Department estimates that the federal government’s ability to pay its debts will be in question come 1 June — this Thursday.
Mr Jeffries spoke on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. While he cautioned that he had not seen the actual text of the bill, which is reportedly set to cap funding for the US government (except for the military) through 2024, he offered a simple “yes” when asked directly if he could guarantee that the US would avert default.
It’s a statement that will likely mean a sigh of relief for those Americans worried about the effects that a credit downgrade would have on the US economy, though that remains a possibility thanks to the toxic partisanship that brought the US to this point in the first place, but also one that may frustrate progressives and other Democrats who may see the development as Democrats giving in to the GOP’s demands. The deal does stave off further debt ceiling negotiations until 2025, but many on the left simply wish to do away with the limit altogether.
And there’s already signs that many on the conservative right do not like the deal, with some even calling any legislation that raises the debt limit a non-starter. Their opposition within the GOP’s slim House majority necessitates votes from Democrats to pass this deal or any other. Many on the right remain unhappy with the idea of extending America’s ability to borrow by a whopping $4 trillion without meaningful cuts to the federal budget, and worry that the party is signing away their ability to push the issue further through the next presidential election.
Those concerns were echoed on Sunday by JD Vance, a Republican US senator from Ohio, but have also found home in the House Freedom Caucus and far-right members like Bob Good in the lower chamber.
“The more I learn about this debt ceiling deal, the more I think it’s bad news,” tweeted Mr Vance.
“I am hearing the ‘deal’ is for a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit. IF that is true, I don’t need to hear anything else. No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote,” added Mr Good.
Still, the deal appears to have the support of centrists in both parties. And Republicans tied to leadership in their party expressed confidence that some of those obstinate voices in their party would be won back before the final vote.
“I feel confident we’ll have those votes after people review the text, talk with their colleagues, compare it to our goals,” Congressman French Hill, a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, told CBS on Sunday.
Others in his party were not so sure.
"Let’s be honest, Bob Good will not vote for this thing,” Rep Dusty Johnson told CNN. “It doesn’t matter if Mother Teresa came back from the dead and called him, he’s not voting for it."
Mr Good’s fellow Republican holdout, Chip Roy, even predicted that more Republicans would rebel once they were educated by conservatives “on what a turd sandwich this ‘deal’ is”.
Their statements proved one thing: Kevin McCarthy’s biggest enemy continues to be his own caucus, which extracted concessions from him to even tolerate his leadership of the House and now clearly understands that it is not beholden to him.
There were no signs of that level of resistance from the left. Pramilia Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CNN on Sunday that she wanted to know more about the deal, particularly the new (temporary) work requirements for federal food stamps, but didn’t say that her caucus planned to whip votes against the deal.
Still, she warned that the White House needed to work with progressives on their concerns, adding that it was true that the White House needed to “worry” about their votes. Should the bulk of the Democratic caucus support it, however, their votes likely wouldn’t be needed.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, called the agreement “an important step forward” that “protects my and Congressional Democrats’ key priorities and legislative accomplishments” — a reference to the lack of greater cuts in the deal.
The president added: “Over the next day, our negotiating teams will finalize legislative text and the agreement will go to the United States House and Senate. I strongly urge both chambers to pass the agreement right away.”
