More Democrats Than Republicans Vote for McCarthy-Biden Debt Ceiling Bill
We need Ron Swanson.
The House passed the McCarthy-Biden debt ceiling bill late Wednesday night because of course they did.
Man, Speaker Kevin McCarthy touted the heck out of this deal but, um, more Democrats voted for it than Republicans.
House Republicans concerned about the Biden-McCarthy deal had the votes to kill it—until 52 House Democrats rushed to the bill’s rescue and saved it. How exactly is this a Republican bill?https://t.co/u2T2j36Mmx
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) May 31, 2023
Here are all of the members that voted no on the debt ceiling deal. pic.twitter.com/faMtBDA0SK
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 1, 2023
I wrote about the cuts in the bill but it’s nothing to celebrate because it’s not enough and gives the Treasury free run to borrow money.
It cuts $136 billion. Our deficit is $1.4 trillion. This isn’t going to put a dent in anything.
The bill passed in a 314-117 vote that saw majorities in both parties support the agreement, which also meets the GOP demand of cutting nondefense discretionary spending over the next two years. Republicans supported the bill by a 149-71 margin, and Democrats supported it 165-46.
Democrats took credit for helping get the bill across the finish line. Earlier in the day, 52 Democrats made the rare move of voting with Republicans in a procedural vote to keep the bill alive.
“I thank House Democrats for your steady hand, for your unity of purpose, for your efforts to make sure that we push back the extreme mega Republican efforts to jam right wing cuts down the throats of the American people that would have undermined the health, the safety and the economic well-being of everyday Americans,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Wednesday night.
“From the very beginning, House Democrats were clear that we will not allow extreme MAGA Republicans to default on our debt, crash the economy or trigger a job killing recession. Under the leadership of President Joe Biden, Democrats kept our promise and we will continue,” he said.
— NONBidenary (@KellyLMcCarty) June 1, 2023
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Comments
“It’s one big party and we’re not invited.
But we sure as hell are paying for it.
It is mighty curious that Demsocialists will go for a “Republican” bill.
I bet they already have the necessary mechanisms in place to counter any reforms.
Many of the no votes are tactical. The Reps voting no fall into two camps. The first is those truly PO about how little McCarthy was able to get; Chip Roy is an example. The second are those who, seeing that it had the votes to pass, voted no b/c their constituents were PO. The second category were attempting to keep from getting unelected by their PO constituents.
Tactical my butt. Stop attributing motives to people that simply don’t exist. The NO votes were cast because the deal sucks and the Reps that cast NO votes know it sucks. It gives the democrats everything they demanded and only gives republicans meaningless token spending concessions that will be quickly reneged on by the democrats.
Commo is saying some of the “no” votes were probably phony “no” votes which is usually true – some of the opposition to a bill comes out only once there are enough “yes” votes to pass.
Kabuki theater.
Exactly.
71 phony No votes certainly beats 149 Yes votes from phony republicans (or should I say republicrats) for for a bill that gives democrats everything they demanded and gives nothing but meaningless concessions to the republicans that democrats will quickly renege on.
This is a very common tactic used in both Houses by both parties to protect certain members from their constituents.
LM,
So all those no votes, every one of them was truly in opposition to the deal McCarthy made? Ok then wouldn’t those same members voting no in disgust and disappointment with Speaker McCarthy’s first big time test as Speaker will now seek his removal as Speaker? That’s the natural next step so let’s see if those 70+ join with the d/prog to oust McCarthy; news flash they probably ain’t gonna do that over this issue. They will piss and moan and bitch on talk radio, Hannity and pod casts but, IMO, don’t have the stones to oust McCarthy. Time will certainly tell whether that analysis is correct.
Some of the no votes, the ones cast by freedom caucus, 45 total, were legit. Many of these other no votes were cast by members who are far less committed to populist right/culture war/small govt issues/ideals than their constituents in deep red districts. Their votes were, IMO, kabuki theater.
Honk, honk!
More Uniparty smoke and mirrors.
Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic…
We are so far under water the deck chairs are just floating around giving the appearance of being arranged.
I know that some Republicans are shrugging their shoulders and saying “it’s the best we can get”. But it’s a pretty big indictment of our political system if this really is the best we can hope for from our elected “representatives”.
This wasn’t the hill (bill) to die on!
We fought more valiantly than the last hill (bill) we surrendered so easily – this retreat was a brave retreat!
Don’t worry – we will really fight for you next time!
Just one election and a ton of donations away from really being able to do something!
And they wonder why their voters are tuning out?? Why bother voting for the people who cave to Progressives every time, and slap us in the face, whilst the country goes bankrupt!!
I have taken to responding to all the beg letter emails with:
“Take a tip from Daniel Penny. He took decisive action first, THEN copious amounts of money flowed his way from grateful citizenry. Doing {insert email promise here} is your current job, the thing we are already paying you to do for us. Do it successfully, then watch the money roll in.”
Nonsense. There would have been no default. All a bluff. There was plenty of money to pay interest on the debt and no need to capitulate to everything and get nothing in return. And there are not many hills left, maybe none. This was no time to capitulate. Come fall we’ll just see another CR or omnibus and there will be more comments like “This wasn’t the hill (bill) to die on!”
Sorry, in my unbalanced anger and irritation, I hastily overlooked the sarcasm. Ignore the downvote.
There is never a hill to die on it seems. They have books showing 5 year olds how to do oral sex and telling them it’s perfectly normal, but we don’t want to make a stink I guess. Just keep giving the left everything they want until we somehow win.
That’s never going to work
It’s a known fact the staff of these critters make most if not all of the decisions in DC. These people are not elected and most become very jaded in their attitude toward the voters. They have blinders on when it comes to issues and do not look at the big picture and the consequences of their vote. It was explained to me that the debit limit is like you going to your bank and asking for a loan so that you can make your mortgage payment. When the bank says “If you can’t make your mortgage payment why would you think that you can make this loan payment?”. Your answer, or Congress’s answer is that “I will come and ask you for another loan then”. And these people think we admire them!
That’s how you know it was a terrible deal, the Communists openly supported
The majority of the members of both parties voted for it, so that’s how it got passed. Trump wanted McCarthy as Speaker, and he got him.
Your GOPe pals just folded for the 4th time since August and you’re still muttering about Trump.
Because Trump, like Ralph Wiggum, is “helping.”
Everything you need to know about federal spending and this bill:
Federal spending 2019 – $4.5 Trillion
$2 Trillion added for a TEMPORARY “emergency” COVID measure in 2020
Federal Spending 2023 – $6.5 Trillion
The “temporary COVID emergency” spending has not stopped. It is an extra $2 Trillion of fed spending. TWO FRIGGIN TRILLION!!!
As to the asinine “default ” talk, the federal government is taking in $4.7 Trillion in receipts and the debt service is about $700 billion. There is absolutely no earthly reason why the US would be at any risk of defaulting on the debt, even if the debt ceiling wasn’t raised for years.
Every person who has been talking about a “default” is a lying sack of pig s**t. The only way that AMerica would be at any risk of a default is if the Executive branch went out of its way to cause it.
BTW, all this BS talk of default because of the debt ceiling started with Barky … the guy who actually spent EXTRA money during a “government shutdown” in order to close off open-air memorials so as to hurt veterans and their families.
“”the federal government is taking in $4.7 Trillion in receipts and the debt service is about $700 billion. “”
True, but their total obligated spending for Social Security, Medicare et al is vastly more than that. Defaulting on any of those programs would amount to political suicide. Socialism is expensive – and addictive.
That is completely untrue. $2 Trillion was added to spending out of nowhere – that had nothing to do with SS, Medicare, etc. and it has never been stopped. That is just extra, wasted spending (above normal!) that has now been accepted into the regular spending, as if it has always been there. It was an emergency measure (so they said).
As I wrote, the spending in 2019 was $4.5 Trillion. With the stated inflation numbers, the most that the spending should be (in line with inflation) is $4.9 Trillion. But it is about $6.5 Trillion. There is A LOT of spending going on that has nothing to do with anything normal.
As to expenditures that the federal government wants to do, they all come AFTER debt service, defense of the territory (and the federal government is spending money to orchestrate an invasion of the territory, as we speak!), and the absolute minimal requirements for the Constitutional parts of the federal government to operate. All other spending is on a “funds available” basis.
There cannot be a debt default with these numbers. There might have to be a government shutdown of a decent amount of it – a real shutdown. There might have to be some welfare checks that don’t go out. There might have to be some illegals that aren’t funded to invade us. But the debt will be paid.
I don’t think this debate was over the total budget. It was only 15% of the budget because the other 85% is entitlements or interest on the debt. That leaves all of the big things that we all know of to be cut in some way or amount. The Dems as usual want to give away money to the undeserving and the Rs want to spend it on things like the military and border defense. The Dems won and that’s that. McCarthy’s middle name is now Compromiser. That is also the majority of Rs in Congress.
Defaulting on any of those programs
That is not a “default”.
The point being that the fight isn’t over entitlement programs, some of which are “self funding”. It’s over the less than 20% that is described as “discretionary”.
The discretionary part is a lot more than 20%, now that the COVID emergency spending has been completely infused into the regular spending.
But the real point I was making was that the talk of “default” is complete BS. But we cannot even get GOP critters to slap down that idiotic blather. Instead, they cede the argument and act as if there is an actual possibility of default, rather than fighting back and just explaining the simple case through the raw numbers. We are lost before we even start – though this is not unusual territory for conservatives depending on our “representatives” in Washington.
Any time someone says “default” every GOP critter needs to slap that talk down and explain how the numbers really are … but I don’t think they want to do that because anyone who sees what the spending was in 2019, and realizes that spending has increased over 50% in the 4 years since, would blow a gasket if they had any fiscal sense. All the GOP needed to say was this:
2019 spending: $4.5 Trillion
2023 spending $6.5 trillion
The numbers speak for themselves.
Without bothering to go back to look up the numbers, the last number I saw quoted anywhere was around 19%, and IIRC, that was from McCarthy. A couple of percent one way or another is irrelevant.
Be’re Biden and Be’re Schumer convinced “wise” old McCarthy to toss them into the bier patch with a “terrible” debt ceiling bill. The GOP would (and does) lose to the Washington Generals every time.. Born Loser!!!
You can’t toss Biden anywhere. He must be picked up very carefully or his strings get all tangled up and his mouth won’t move.
“Sandbagging the president” has just taken on a very literal meaning.
Like it or not we are not going to default, and if we do it is going to be the Republicans who are blamed.
We managed to get something, that is worth celebrating.
One interpretation of default is that the money isn’t worth what was. From that perspective the loss of purchasing power as direct consequence of the artificially high money supply from both fiscal (Congress/Exec Branch) and monetary (Fed Reserve) overly expansive policies is a form of default. When my 30 year bond comes due and I get paid off if the principal has lost 50% or more of purchasing power that’s a big haircut and definitely a form of default.
Frankly there are three options.
1. Cut spending dramatically. Slow growth of govt below rate of inflation. (Unlikely)
2. Monetize the debt. (What we’ve been doing)
3. Say the hell with it and keep spending until the house of cards comes crashing down. (Been doing this as well).
Eventually the day will come when we lose the benefit of the $ as reserve currency. The shift is ongoing. As a % of foreign reserves the $ has fallen from near 90% a decade ago to less than 60% today. The foolish sanctions on Russia and antagonism to Saudi has accelerated the trend towards a commodities backed/tied alternative currency as a preferred reserve.
When that day comes we will no longer be able to export inflation. Foreign govt and institutions will buy far less of our debt. Our borrowing costs will rise dramatically crossing out other spending. IMO, that’s when a default will occur.
Unless McCarthy is bounced, the Republican Party deserves no respect at all. Incidentally, borrowing such huge amounts to finance massive deficit spending will make it very tough to get inflation back to 2%.