House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) squeaked his $4.8 trillion grab bag of a debt-ceiling bill through the House Wednesday. The final vote was 217-215.
The prize: The House GOP seized the debt ceiling as a hostage in negotiations with the Senate and White House.
Last week, McCarthy didn’t have a plan or the votes. He cobbled together a plan that threw nearly every far-right wish list item into a bill that didn’t go through the regular committee process and then vowed to take it to the floor before he had the votes.
Along the way, despite repeatedly vowing he wouldn’t, McCarthy once again bent to the pressure from extremists in his caucus and was forced to make changes to the bill to get it through the House Rules Committee.
With only a handful of votes to spare, McCarthy got the final holdouts to fall in line Wednesday morning.
The House-passed bill is DOA in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Biden has promised a veto. But passing something – anything really – was the barest minimum bar McCarthy, a historically weak speaker, had to overcome. He barely did so.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) squeaked his $4.8 trillion grab bag of a debt-ceiling bill through the House Wednesday. The final vote was 217-215.
The prize: The House GOP seized the debt ceiling as a hostage in negotiations with the Senate and White House.
Last week, McCarthy didn’t have a plan or the votes. He cobbled together a plan that threw nearly every far-right wish list item into a bill that didn’t go through the regular committee process and then vowed to take it to the floor before he had the votes.
Along the way, despite repeatedly vowing he wouldn’t, McCarthy once again bent to the pressure from extremists in his caucus and was forced to make changes to the bill to get it through the House Rules Committee.
With only a handful of votes to spare, McCarthy got the final holdouts to fall in line Wednesday morning.
The House-passed bill is DOA in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Biden has promised a veto. But passing something – anything really – was the barest minimum bar McCarthy, a historically weak speaker, had to overcome. He barely did so.