The final debt limit deal negotiated between House Republican leaders and the White House that sets an $886 billion defense topline for fiscal year 2024 has received pushback from some GOP lawmakers as Congress aims to consider legislation this week.
The House Freedom Caucus and several Senate Republicans have criticized the Fiscal Responsibility Act
, which would raise the debt ceiling through fiscal year 2025, for not boosting defense further or going far enough on non-defense spending cuts.
“I want to be very clear, not one Republican should vote for this deal. Not one,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the House Rules Committee, said during a Freedom Caucus press conference on Tuesday. “No one sent us here to borrow an additional $4 trillion to get absolutely nothing in return but at best, if I’m being really generous, a spending freeze for a couple of years. That’s it. That’s about what you get. And frankly, you’re going to make things worse. And my Democratic colleagues know it. That’s why they’re supporting it. That’s why they’re going around gleeful.”
After weeks of negotiations, the compromise legislation rolled out on Sunday to lift the debt ceiling includes supporting an $886 billion defense topline, the level requested in the president’s budget for FY ‘24 and a 3.3 percent increase over FY ‘23, and a $704 billion topline for nondefense, around a five percent cut from the request.
The bill then authorizes a one percent increase in FY ‘25 to the defense and non-defense toplines.
“The American people elected House Republicans to stop the out-of-control inflationary spending that has broken family budgets. Today, we secured a historic series of wins worthy of the American people,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said in a joint statement after the deal was announced. “We cut spending year-over-year for the first time in over a decade while fully funding national defense and veterans’ health benefits, include the largest rescission in history by clawing back billions in unspent COVID funds, and achieve consequential work requirements to welfare programs to lift Americans out of poverty and grow the economy.”
The White House said it “strongly supports” the measure in its statement of administration policy on the legislation, adding it “reflects a bipartisan compromise to avoid a first-ever default and protect our nation’s hard-earned and historic economic recovery.”
“A default could have catastrophic impacts on every single part of this country. It could lead to an economic recession, devastate retirement accounts, and cost our nation millions of jobs,” the White House said.
The House is set to vote on Wednesday on the legislation, which the Senate could take up later this week and as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the U.S. may need act on the debt ceiling by June 5 to avoid a default scenario.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, also announced her opposition to the measure in a statement on social media.
“The bill doesn’t actually set a debt limit. Rather it suspends the debt limit entirely until Jan. 2, 2025 and there is no actual amount capping the debt ceiling,” Mace wrote.
In the Senate, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said the House Rules Committee “should reject this deal” while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) cited the lack of a defense spending increase and noted “the Biden defense budget has been ridiculed by Republicans for over a year.”
“I will use all powers available to me in the Senate to have amendment votes to undo this catastrophe for defense. I support raising the debt limit for 90 days to give us a chance to correct this disaster for defense,” Graham said in a social media post.
Many Republicans in the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have called for another increase to the defense topline as Congress begins consideration of defense policy and spending bills for FY ‘24, while the debt ceiling bill would break with the recent pattern of bipartisan defense spending increases.
HASC postponed its National Defense Authorization Act markup due to the ongoing debt ceiling debate (Defense Daily, May 10).
The debt limit deal has also received pushback from progressive Democratic lawmakers such as Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who has said he has “serious concerns” on the compromise legislation.
“My team and I are still reviewing it. But one of the major concerns is on non-defense discretionary spending. While the defense budget continues to go up, our ability to feed our children goes down, our ability to educate our children goes down, our ability for workforce development goes down and our ability to meet the complex needs of the most vulnerable Americans goes down,” Bowman told CNN on Monday.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chair of the House Rules Committee, offered his support for the deal ahead of his panel’s hearing on the bill, which was still ongoing as of Defense Daily’s deadline.
“Today’s bill is a product of compromise and reflects the realities of a divided government. We shouldn’t allow that to overshadow what this bill accomplishes. As I’ve often said, in a true negotiation you always get less than you want and give up more than you’d like. But with the passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, we’ll responsibly lift the debt ceiling and avoid a default that would devastate the American economy and we will achieve real reductions in spending while doing so. Indeed, this is the most consequential spending reduction bill in more than a decade,” Cole said.“We accomplished this while giving an appropriate increase to defense spending and without cutting money for veterans”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that McCarthy has signaled that there will be at least 150 Republican votes in favor of the bill when it comes to the floor on Wednesday, which would represent two-thirds of the GOP majority.
“It’s our expectation that House Republicans will keep their promise and deliver at least 150 votes as it relates to an agreement that they themselves negotiated with the White House,” Jeffries told reporters. “House Democrats will make sure that the country does not default.”