“Fake spending cuts by fake conservatives,” Rand Paul
The debt ceiling agreement appears to be a resounding win for Democrats. Axios reporter Andrew Solendar said that a senior House Democrat told the outlet that “Most [Democrats] are surprised by how modest the concessions appear to be.”
“Right now, the Democrats are very upset,” McCarthy said. House Democratic leader “Hakeem [Jeffries] told me, there’s nothing in the bill for them. There’s not one thing in the bill for Democrats.”
That was news to Jeffries, who said in a CBS News “Face the Nation” interview: “I have no idea what he’s talking about, particularly because I have not been able to review the actual legislative text,” Axios reported.
McCarthy toned it down by Sunday afternoon.
“It is not everything everybody wanted, but I think it is a very positive bill,” he told reporters later in the day.
Asked whether he could get Democratic votes for a bill he cast as a total GOP victory, McCarthy said: “We raised the debt ceiling, we negotiated in good faith with the president. … There’s a lot in here for both sides.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) characterized the fact that the bill raises the debt ceiling into 2025 as a “huge win” for Biden, but conceded McCarthy has “worked the public relations of this, in my opinion, to great effect.”
The Resounding Win
McCarthy is spinning a tale or doesn’t understand what he agreed to.
McCarthy actually told his members on a Saturday night conference call that he made zero concessions to Democrats.
Here is one example. McCarthy and his investigators boast that the deal “restart[s] student loan repayments,” but the White House said that it simply “codifies an end to the pause — which the administration had planned to end on September 1.”
Conservatives say the White House is correct.
Here are more concessions:
- Increase spending.
- Keep the green new deal.
- Keep the student loan bailout.
- Keep almost all the IRS funding. Most of the soon-to-be 87,000 IRS agents will be protected to hound gig economy workers and other low to middle-class workers.
- Not enforceable. They say it is enforceable, but there aren’t any legal mechanisms to enforce it.
- Increase the debt ceiling by about $4 trillion over two years to avoid a pre-2024 election fight. It’s unlimited in that it will remain uncapped until Jan. 1, 2025. By Jan 2025, we will have a $36 trillion debt.
Senior House Dem tells @Axios that if the Progressive Caucus doesn’t whip against the debt ceiling deal, “I expect the vast majority (and perhaps 100%) of Democrats to support it.”
“Contingent on final text, most are surprised by how modest the concessions appear to be.”
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) May 28, 2023
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