April 24
By Kaia Hubbard
The latest phase of the debt ceiling fight comes to a head this week as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy looks to wrangle the votes for legislation raising the debt limit and slashing spending as a standoff between the GOP and the White House heats up amid a busy week in Washington.
The bill, dubbed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, is dead on arrival in the Senate. But its approval in the lower chamber is key for McCarthy, who has railed against President Joe Biden’s unwillingness to negotiate spending cuts tied to a debt ceiling increase, while ramping up calls for another meeting in recent days.
“Why won’t the president sit down to negotiate a responsible debt limit increase?” McCarthy wrote in a tweet on Monday. “What is he afraid of?”
The White House has called for a clean debt-limit hike and accused Republicans of “holding the American economy hostage” to cut spending. But if the legislation is approved, McCarthy may put pressure on Biden to come to the table as the deadline to avert default draws nearer. Already a handful of Democrats, who have largely stayed out of debt ceiling talks as House Republicans duke things out with the White House, have begun calling for Biden to meet with McCarthy in recent days.
If Congress does not approve a debt ceiling hike, the government is expected to default sometime between June and September, when the “x” date when it can no longer pay its bills is projected. But Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has for months urged Congress to “act promptly” to avert a catastrophic default.
McCarthy unveiled legislation last week to raise the debt limit into 2024, while returning discretionary spending to fiscal 2022 levels and limiting the growth of spending to 1% per year. The legislation would target spending like IRS funding, “green giveaways” for companies and student loan forgiveness, among other key components of Biden’s domestic achievements.
The legislation is slated for markup on Tuesday, setting up a vote on the House floor as early as Wednesday. But with only a four-vote majority, and as a number of House Republicans have already signaled they will vote against the legislation, McCarthy faces a difficult path forward.
Meanwhile, while the Senate is largely staying out of the debt limit fight for the time being, the upper chamber is embroiled in its own challenges this week.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s prolonged health absence has complicated Democrats’ efforts to confirm President Joe Biden’s judicial nominations. Last week, Republicans blocked an attempt by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to temporarily replace the California Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, where Democrats hold a one-person majority. And her absence from the committee has made other efforts more difficult as well.
The committee’s chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, has led the charge in recent weeks on ethics reform at the Supreme Court after a recent bombshell report revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas received unreported gifts from a GOP donor, among more recent revelations. Durbin invited Chief Justice John Roberts or another justice to testify before the committee on the subject next week. But without Feinstein, Democrats lack a majority needed to subpoena the justices for their testimony.
Major developments concerning the 2024 presidential race are also expected this week, as Biden is expected to launch his reelection bid for president on Tuesday amid ailing approval ratings and questions over his age.
Also on Tuesday, the leading Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump, is expected to once again be in the legal spotlight as a civil trial in Manhattan concerning rape allegations gets underway.
The week comes with the backdrop of a Supreme Court order late Friday preserving access to medication used for abortions, in the most consequential abortion case to reach the high court since it overturned Roe v. Wade last year. The issue has embroiled the political world in recent days and is expected to loom large over the 2024 election.