In votes held on Wednesday covering a deal to raise the nation’s debt limit so the government can legally accommodate expenses to which it was already obliged, Democrats — who aren’t even in the majority — repeatedly ensured things kept moving in the House. As his side sees internal division, Kevin McCarthy is even seeing threats to his Speakership.
In a vote on moving forward towards final passage, Democratic votes gave the effort the support it needed. Later, more Democrats voted in favor of the actual deal than Republicans, meaning it’s members of the Democratic Party who secured the plan by which a massive hit to the national and world economies would be avoided.
On the Right, some Republicans are outraged about the contents of the underlying deal that was eventually struck between GOP leadership and the White House after Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling without accompanying legislative priorities attached. Biden helped secure significant wins in these negotiations, keeping, for instance, the expansion of work requirements for federal benefits that Republicans wanted much more limited than what they were pursuing.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) is one of the Republicans who has opposed the plan to address the debt ceiling, and on her personal Twitter account recently, she’s been complaining about aspects of the plan including the ostensibly thin scope of reductions in funding for the IRS and redirection of funds that had originally been designated for COVID-19-related efforts.
“Just so we’re all working off the same sheet of music, the IRS gets a 1.75% budget cut in this debt ceiling bill,” Boebert claimed in one post. “Best case scenario, instead of 87,000 new agents for the IRS Army we get about 1,500 less. That’s not repealing 87,000 IRS agents.” Republicans have repeatedly raised conspiracy theory-driven complaints about funding for the IRS, characterizing what would be transpiring at that agency with the support in place as some kind of potentially armed targeting of everyday Americans.
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) has helped circulate the threats to McCarthy’s stint as House Speaker in connection with how the debt and spending negotiations transpired. “I think he should be concerned,” Buck said of McCarthy and his hold on the leadership position. “My constituents are furious and you know what’s so interesting about the calls in the district?” Buck added this week. “They are not only ‘vote against this bill,’ but they are ‘take McCarthy out.’ That’s what the calls are coming in.” Those comments were publicized by CNN journalists Manu Raju and Morgan Rimmer.
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) has also spoken in support of possibly pushing out McCarthy. And that doesn’t even cover the many Republicans who’ve been vocally furious about the deal itself. A full 71 Republicans voted against the deal, even though their party is the one that left debt negotiations at this kind of position at all. Many prominent names were included, like Andy Biggs, Byron Donalds, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Anna Paulina Luna, Nancy Mace, Victoria Spartz, and many others. Even George Santos opposed the plan.
