Next week, Kevin McCarthy will face his biggest test since winning the speaker’s gavel.
McCarthy and House Republicans want to vote soon on the 320-page debt ceiling package they released this week. It’s not clear yet whether McCarthy can convince 218 Republicans to back his plan, though the speaker and his leadership team are expressing confidence that they’ll have the votes they need. Republicans hold a 222-213 majority, meaning McCarthy can only lose the support of four of his members.
“Republican lawmakers, some who have never before voted to raise the nation’s debt limit, now are seriously considering doing just that,” Lisa Mascaro of the Associated Press reports. “They say McCarthy has built up goodwill by listening to — and accepting — many of their proposals. Rather than fight amongst themselves, they want to force Biden to the negotiating table.”
As of Friday, McCarthy reportedly has not yet secured 218 votes. “McCarthy is coming up short in support for his first big legislative effort,” Bloomberg’s Billy House and Erik Wasson reported at midday, adding that several Republicans — both conservative and moderate — remain noncommittal.
His leadership team is working to win over wavering members, and some conservatives reportedly are pressing to further tighten Medicaid work requirements. The legislation as drafted would make those requirements apply to beneficiaries up to age 56, higher than the current 49. Conservatives reportedly want to increase the number of hours that able-bodied adults must work or perform community service to qualify for the program to 30, up from 20. Moderates are resistant to such changes, and one Republican lawmaker told Semafor that raising the work requirement would start “taking numbers off the board” for McCarthy and his team.
“This is a sensible proposal and we want to keep folks in lockstep. I would say don’t f--- it up!” a House GOP aide told Semafor.
McCarthy told reporters Thursday that his plan was in good shape. “I want you to see as the clock goes up, I want you to write stories like, I’m teetering, whether I can win or not, and the whole world hangs in the balance,” he said. “And then I want you to write a story after it passes, Would the president sit down and negotiate?”
Pressuring Biden is the House GOP’s goal here. “We have to got to make our case that the president is being totally unreasonable to not show up at the negotiating table,” said Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX). “We have to have a united front and demonstrate we have 218 and we have a set of terms we are willing to negotiate.”
The bottom line: Whether McCarthy can secure 218 votes will determine how the debt-limit drama plays out. If he can’t corral his own party and has to pull the bill, it would be an embarrassing defeat. “McCarthy could be left watching the Democrats hash out a deal with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell,” Bloomberg’s House and Wasson suggest. Even if McCarthy can get his bill passed, the next steps would be uncertain given that the package has no chance of clearing the Senate and the White House has insisted on a “clean” bill. “In some ways,” Mascaro writes, “this is the easy part, with the real lift still to come.”
