House PASSES IT – Voters Just Did It!

(DailyVantage.com) – Kevin McCarthy can put a notch on his score card following a narrow win to pass his bill raising the debt limit. All Democrat votes opposed the bill, but House Republicans passed the bill 217-215, despite losing four of their cohort to the other side of the aisle.

Representatives Matt Gaetz, R. Florida, Tim Burchett, R. Tennessee, Andy Biggs, R. Arizona, and Ken Buck, R. Colorado did not join their party to move the bill onto the Senate.

Although President Joe Biden has sworn to veto the bill if it makes it to his desk, House Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, D. New York claimed the bill is “dead on arrival” (DOA) and his party will not let it reach the Oval Office.

Republican members of the House hope that, despite Biden’s promise to veto, they can negotiate with more leverage in the coming weeks now that the bill has passed. According to Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans the federal budget should be pared down and insist it is done before raising the limit of government’s borrowing power.

If an agreement on the debt ceiling can not be reached the federal government runs the risk of having an empty purse when the bills come due in June.

McCarthy stated during a press conference following the vote, “We have lifted the debt ceiling, so nobody could worry about whether the debt ceiling is going to get lifted, we did it. The Democrats have not. The president wants to make sure the debt ceiling is going to be lifted? Sign this bill.”

A joint statement was released by all four members of the Iowa House delegation indicating their intention to support the bill. These lawmakers were part of a group of seven or eight from the “corn belt” of the US airing concerns about a repeal of tax credits in the bill that could impede ethanol production in their state. 

GOP leaders worked overnight to modify and soften the repeal of the biofuel tax credits, and delay the planned start for work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP to begin from 2024 to 2025.

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