The U.S. House voted 217-215 on Wednesday to pass the GOP debt-ceiling bill, which has no chance of winning passage in the Senate, but does give MAGA Republicans a seat at the budget negotiating table with Senate Democrats and President Biden.
Four Republicans voted against the measure – the anti-Kevin McCarthy wing of Ken Buck of Colorado, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Matt Gaetz of Florida.
Perhaps surprisingly, another of the anti-McCarthy MAGAs, Bob Good, who represents the Fifth District just over the mountains from us, voted with the slim majority.
“House Republicans just passed historic spending cuts to get our debt under control. We are taking action to shrink Washington and grow America. It is time for President Biden to come to the table,” Good said on Twitter after the vote.
The spending cuts, shocker, would gut social safety net programs, roll back Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt, in addition to taking aim at climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Ben Cline, a hard-liner who represents the Sixth District, issued the kind of statement that you would expect from a guy who voted to decertify the 2020 election, blaming Biden and “Deficit-Loving D.C. Democrats” for the national debt, which actually exploded under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, whose final budget, in 2020, ran at a deficit of more than $3.1 trillion.
It’s OK when Republicans spend money, is the message here.
“While Biden has no plan to avoid debt default,” Cline said in his statement, “House Republicans are committed to a reasonable, responsible, and sensible solution to our nation’s debt crisis that would limit Washington’s irresponsible spending, save taxpayer dollars, and grow the American economy. It’s time Democrats finally do their job and come to the negotiating table.”
Democrats took to framing the Republican bill as “the Default on America Act,” pointing to the threat from McCarthy and the MAGAs to push the debt-ceiling talks to the brink of defaulting on the national debt to try to extract concessions in the negotiations.
Moody’s Analytics predicts that a default would trigger a loss of 7 million jobs, push the unemployment rate over 8 percent, eliminate approximately $10 trillion in household wealth, and reduce America’s real GDP by almost 4 percent.
Them’s the stakes.
“We can pay our nation’s bills while also having responsible conversations about federal spending,” said Abigail Spanberger, who represents Virginia’s Seventh District. “Unfortunately, this process was an outright refusal to reckon with the serious nature of the economic catastrophe that’s approaching. This messaging bill will die in the U.S. Senate, and we will have accomplished nothing besides watching Speaker McCarthy prove a point.”
“Speaker McCarthy and congressional Republicans are threatening a catastrophic, first-ever debt default if their extreme proposals are not met; however, the Default on America Act is a nonstarter. It is filled with cruel cuts that will hurt everyday Americans and drastically diminish Virginians’ quality of life,” said Jennifer McClellan, a Democrat who represents Virginia’s Fourth District.
“I voted against this legislation to stand up for Virginians and Americans across the nation, because their bill will jeopardize Medicaid coverage for aging Americans, drastically limit access to federal food assistance programs, and strip away childcare options for working families,” McClellan said.
Share
Chris Graham
