Debt ceiling news – live: Biden signs debt limit bill after hailing deal in Oval Office address
Bill passed after senators rejected 11 proposed amendments
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Your support makes all the difference.President Joe Biden has signed a bill to raise the national debt limit two days before the default deadline.
The White House announced the signing in a statement on Saturday afternoon, hours after Mr Biden spoke to the nation on Friday evening from the Oval Office and welcomed the bill’s bipartisan passage.
The Senate on Thursday passed a bipartisan agreement forged by Mr Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to raise the $31.4 trillion US debt ceiling after the deal survived a Republican rebellion in the House of Representatives.
The narrowness of the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s passage through the House was made possible through the support of Democrats, who stepped in to thwart a conservative revolt that badly undermined Speaker McCarthy’s claims to control his increasingly divided party.
Full congressional approval was required before Monday 5 June, when the Treasury Department was expected to run out of funds to pay its debts for the first time in American history, triggering likely economic chaos.
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Underestimated McCarthy emerges from debt deal empowered as speaker, still threatened by far right
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is nothing if not a political survivor.
Underestimated from the start, the Republican who cruised around his California hometown of Bakersfield and stumbled into a career in Congress was never taken too seriously by the Washington establishment.
With overwhelming House passage of the debt ceiling and budget deal he negotiated with President Joe Biden, the emergent speaker proved the naysayers and eye-rollers otherwise. A relentless force, he pushed a reluctant White House to the negotiating table and delivered the votes from his balky House GOP majority to seal the deal.
“You still ask the same questions each week: Do you think you can pass the bill this week. Do you think you will still be speaker next week,” McCarthy chided reporters after Wednesday’s late night vote.
“Keep underestimating us,” he said, “and we’ll keep proving to the American public that we’ve never given up.”
Read more:
Underestimated McCarthy emerges from debt deal empowered as speaker, still threatened by far right
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is nothing if not a political survivor
What is the debt ceiling now?
The ceiling has been raised many times over the past century since it was introduced – taking it to 31.4 trillion dollars.
Historically this largely happened without much drama – after all Congress gets to vote on the Government’s spending during the budget negotiations.
But from the mid-1990s the US Republicans have on several occasions used the debt ceiling as leverage to pressure Democratic Presidents into making changes to its spending.
What did the June deadline mean?
The Treasury had originally set a June 1 deadline to raise or suspend the debt ceiling, but last week extended it until next Monday.
This deadline is not as inflexible as it might first seem. Instead it is more like an estimate of when the US might hit up against the ceiling.
The debt limit was increased by 2.5 trillion dollars in 2021 to a little under 31.4 trillion dollars, but by January this year US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the Government was set to reach that limit.
She has since taken measures to make the money last as long as possible, using different tools to avoid a default.
This has meant issuing hundreds of billions of dollars of IOUs, using up the hundreds of billions in cash that the Government had in its accounts, and also using up the tax money that it collected in the intervening months.
The deadline is also not set in stone. If the Government can eek out a few more weeks and make its money last until June 15 there will be another injection of tax money into the coffers as another tax deadline approaches.
Biden and McCarthy’s debt limit deal went through – but there are winners and losers
The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday evening to raise the debt limit, with more Democrats voting to raise the limit than Republicans, and all but guaranteeing its passage in the United States Senate.
The vote served as a triumph for House Republicans as they moved the White House from initially wanting to have a clean debt limit increase to agreeing to some spending cuts. But 71 Republicans still opposed the agreement negotiated by the Biden administration and Reps Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and Garret Graves (R-LA).
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he hopes to pass the legislation quickly and before 5 June, when the Treasury Department says the United States will be unable to fulfill its debt obligations and risk defaulting on its debt.
This was the first major test for House Republicans’ resolve since they took control of the lower chamber in January after a protracted series of votes to get a speaker. Some conservatives crowed that the bill did not go far enough in spending cuts while House Republican leaders say they forced the White House’s hand. Conversely, progressive Democrats criticised the deal for putting in place work requirements for social welfare programs.
These are the winners and losers of the debt limit standoff:
Biden and McCarthy’s debt limit deal went through – but there are winners and losers
Student debtors and SNAP recipients will pay a price
Winner: Sen Joe Manchin (D-WV)
Even with a Republican House and an additional Senate seat, Sen Joe Manchin continues to have a profound impact on any piece of legislation. Throughout the deliberations, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy cited him. Mr Manchin has raised a ruckus in recent months, opposing the Biden administration’s nominees in response to the White House’s implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, the signature law he brokered with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last year, which he says is too focused on promoting green energy alternatives.
But the debt limit agreement gave him a win when it included the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that would span from West Virginia to Virginia. Mr Manchin had attempted to get the pipeline approved last year to no avail. But the approval also incensed many Virginia Democrats, including Sen Tim Kaine (D-VA), who proposed an amendment to strike the provision from the text.
This could be a long night...
Andrew Desidero of Punchbowl News reports that there will be 11 amendment votes in the Senate before a vote on the final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
100 senators need to sign off on amendments list before voting start
CNN’s Manu Raju provides the following context:
Senate leaders propose a list of 11 amendments followed by a final vote on the debt ceiling bill, according to a notice just sent to all senators. All votes would be subject to a 60-vote threshold, and all are expected to fail other than final passage of the bill.
They need all 100 senators to sign off on the deal to start voting. If there’s a time agreement, this would push final passage vote until very late into the night, potentially past midnight.
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