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☆ McCarthy Offers to Host Netanyahu in Congress
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Patrick Kingsley | Karoun Demirjian | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Speaker Kevin McCarthy offered on Monday to host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for high-level bipartisan meetings in Congress — issuing an implicit challenge to President Biden, who has refrained from welcoming the Israeli leader to the White House in a protest against his domestic agenda. The offer fell short of a formal invitation, but the comments were a break with diplomatic custom and tradition, and reminiscent of a similar move by congressional Republicans during the Obama administration when tensions in the U.S.-Israeli alliance were similarly fraught. The move also risked exacerbating tensions between Democrats and Republicans over how the United States should manage its alliance with Israel, a bond that has traditionally had bipartisan support in Washington. Mr. McCarthy’s comments, at a news briefing after he spoke at the Israeli Parliament, suggested a business-as-usual approach to Mr. Netanyahu’s government.

☆ McCarthy Brought His Detractors in From the Cold. Will They Stay?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Catie Edmondson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — Speaker Kevin McCarthy narrowly passed his first major test this week when he marshaled the votes of his slim majority to muscle through a plan to tie a debt ceiling increase to spending cuts in a bid to force President Biden to negotiate over averting a disastrous default. It was a bare-minimum victory on a doomed bill, but it reflected how Mr. McCarthy, the California Republican who clawed his way to his position by catering to the hard right, has — for now — won over the ultraconservative wing of his party. Now comes the hard part. Having rallied Republicans around a plan he promised would strengthen his negotiating power against Mr. Biden, Mr. McCarthy will have to keep the right flank of his party happy as he seeks to negotiate a fiscal deal with the White House that will almost certainly be far less conservative than the bill the House passed on Wednesday. Mr. McCarthy succeeded this week by doing what he promised to during his drawn-out race for the speakership: empowering some of the most conservative lawmakers in his conference, the same ones who led the effort to block his election in January.

☆ Biden Faces His First Big Choice on Debt Limit
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Jim Tankersley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“In our history, we have never defaulted on our debt or failed to pay our bills. Congressional Republicans must act immediately and without conditions to avoid default.”But that does not mean Mr. Biden will be able to maintain his current posture toward Mr. McCarthy indefinitely. Administration officials have pushed business groups to pressure Republicans to pass a no-strings debt limit increase. “I’m happy to meet with McCarthy, but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. More recently, officials across the administration have blasted the Republican bill for potentially cutting spending on popular programs for veterans, students and more.

☆ The Real Debt Limit Fight Is Yet to Come
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Carl Hulse | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Wednesday did what many of them vowed they never would: They voted to raise the federal debt ceiling. “It sucks,” said Representative Lauren Boebert, a hard-right Republican from Colorado whose vote was carefully watched as party leaders squeezed recalcitrant lawmakers. “But you gotta do what you gotta do.”As a reward for their begrudging support of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s call for legislation he said would strengthen his bargaining power against President Biden, right-wing conservatives earned the chance to take another debt limit vote sometime this summer. But the next one could be on legislation lacking the budget cuts and policy rollbacks that many Republicans demanded to barely nudge this doomed plan over the top. It also made clear that some combination of Democratic and Republican votes would ultimately be required to raise the debt limit to avert a fiscal catastrophe.

☆ McCarthy's debt-ceiling bill tests unity of U.S. House Republicans
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Richard Cowan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

It was interrupted by an extended recess to allow Republicans to work out last-minute changes to the bill and thus improve chances of passage in the Republican-controlled House. Several House Republicans, particularly from Midwest states, had rebelled against that provision. The full House vote will be a test of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's leadership. He has argued that passing the bill could force Biden to agree to negotiate spending cuts in exchange for lifting the federal government's $31.4 trillion borrowing limit. House Republicans are offering to increase Washington's borrowing authority by $1.5 trillion or until March 31, whichever comes first.

☆ After a Hellish Start and a Honeymoon, McCarthy Faces His First Big Test
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Annie Karni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — Grinning through 15 excruciating rounds of votes to become speaker of the House in January may have been unpleasant, but Kevin McCarthy was determined to focus on the silver lining. “See, this is the great part,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters who questioned how — if he could barely get his colleagues to elect him — he would ever be able to govern his slim and unruly House Republican majority. “Because it took this long, now we learned how to govern. Mr. McCarthy is set as early as Wednesday to bring to the floor his proposal to lift the debt ceiling for a year in exchange for spending cuts and policy changes. With a slim majority — with all Democrats present and voting no, he could afford to lose no more than four votes — it is still not clear whether he has the votes to pass a bill that has no chance of enactment.

☆ House Republicans, Grasping for Votes, Alter Debt Limit Plan
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Catie Edmondson | Carl Hulse | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders on Wednesday were scrounging for the votes to pass legislation to raise the debt ceiling while cutting spending and unraveling major elements of President Biden’s domestic agenda, after a late-night haggling session in which they revised their fiscal plan in an effort to win over holdouts in their ranks. The measure, which would cut federal spending by nearly 14 percent over a decade, would undo some of Mr. Biden’s clean energy tax credits and his student loan cancellation plan and impose stricter work requirements for federal nutrition and health programs. It would be dead on arrival in the Democratic-led Senate and at the White House, where Mr. Biden’s advisers have warned that it would draw his veto. But Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whose reputation and influence were on the line in the steepest test he has faced since winning his post, has described the plan as a way to strengthen his hand as he seeks to force a debt confrontation with the president. In a closed-door meeting with Republicans in the basement of the Capitol on Wednesday morning, Mr. McCarthy pleaded with his conference to back the measure so he could open negotiations with Mr. Biden, according to a person who attended the session and described his remarks on the condition of anonymity.

☆ House passes GOP debt limit bill, as McCarthy tries to draw Biden into negotiations
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Christina Wilkie | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON — A Republican bill to raise the debt limit and slash government funding passed the House on Wednesday, after 11th hour changes won over a group of holdouts within the GOP caucus. The vote was a victory for embattled House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., capping off a 24-hour sprint that saw party leaders work past 2 a.m. Instead of viewing the provisions in the 320-page bill as future laws, per se, House Republicans view the plan more as a symbolic opening bid in the negotiations McCarthy will hold with President Joe Biden later this year over the debt limit and federal funding. The White House sees things very differently, however. House Republicans must take default off the table and address the debt limit without demands and conditions," the White House said.

“See, this is the great part,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters who questioned how — if he could barely get his colleagues to elect him — he would ever be able to govern his slim and unruly House Republican majority. Mr. McCarthy is set as early as Wednesday to bring to the floor his proposal to lift the debt ceiling for a year in exchange for spending cuts and policy changes. That includes soliciting “yes” votes from right-wing members who have never before voted to increase the debt ceiling and take pride in that fact. But after late-night wrangling on Tuesday, Mr. McCarthy appeared to have acquiesced at least in part, moving up the imposition of stricter requirements by a year, to 2024. “The last five votes, you’re standing there begging,” Mr. Gingrich said he has told Mr. McCarthy of his own experience with tough bills.

☆ Don’t Call It a ‘Cut’: G.O.P. Tries to Rebrand Its Plan to Reduce Spending
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Catie Edmondson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — In 2011, as a wave of populist fervor swept through Congress, delivering a restive class of anti-spending Republicans who had no appetite for raising the debt limit, House G.O.P. leaders rallied their members around a bill with a blunt, snappy slogan: “Cut, Cap and Balance.”The phrase neatly encapsulated the unequivocal nature of the conditions Republicans were demanding in exchange for allowing the government to avoid a debt default. Their legislation — a purely symbolic measure that had no chance of enactment — would have slashed spending deeply enough to cut the deficit in half within a year, imposed austere caps on future federal spending, and required that Congress amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget before raising the debt limit. Now, as another group of Republicans resists raising the debt ceiling, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has presented a list of spending demands that he hopes to push through the House along party lines as soon as Wednesday. Mr. Biden has been calling on Republicans for months to raise the debt ceiling without conditions to avoid a catastrophic default that could come as soon as this summer.

☆ Kevin McCarthy, House GOP Debt-Limit Plan Face Crucial Test This Week
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Lindsay Wise | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg. WASHINGTON—Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans face a crucial test this week as they scramble to unite their factious party around a bill that would slash government spending in exchange for raising the nation’s borrowing limit. With the health of both the economy and his speakership potentially on the line in the debt-limit fight, Mr. McCarthy and his allies have begun the process of wrangling the 218 votes needed for passage of their plan. In the narrowly divided 222-213 House, Republicans can afford no more than four defections, if all Democrats vote no, as expected.

☆ Explainer: Tax cuts, balanced budget: What's not in Republican McCarthy's debt plan?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Some House Republicans have called for balancing the budget within 10 years, but McCarthy's proposed cuts would almost certainly not hit that goal. McCarthy's plan would not repeal two tax hikes secured by Democrats in last year's Inflation Reduction Act: a 15% minimum tax on large corporations and a 1% excise tax on stock buybacks. It also does not try to make permanent the temporary individual tax cuts contained in the 2017 Republican tax-cut package that are due to expire in 2025. His former budget director, Russell Vought, called for cuts to housing, education and health programs in a proposal released earlier this year. McCarthy's plan would not repeal Obamacare, or roll back enhancements secured by Democrats in 2021 and 2022.

☆ The Debt Ceiling Debate Is About More Than Debt
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Jim Tankersley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Republican plan is estimated to reduce that ratio — known as debt-to-G.D.P. — in 2033 by about 9 percentage points if fully enacted. By contrast, Mr. Biden’s latest budget, which raises trillions of dollars in new taxes from corporations and high earners and includes new spending on child care and education, would reduce the ratio by about 6 percentage points. Those reductions are a far cry from Republicans’ promises, after winning control of the House in November, to balance the budget in 10 years. At the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, Mr. McCarthy accused the president and his party of already adding “$6 trillion to our nation’s debt burden,” ignoring the bipartisan support enjoyed by most of the spending Mr. Biden has signed into law.

☆ House G.O.P. Eyes Rescinding Unspent Covid Money as Part of Its Fiscal Plan
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Catie Edmondson | Madeleine Ngo | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Their focus on the idea reflects how, after toiling unsuccessfully for months to unite their rank and file around a fiscal blueprint, G.O.P. leaders have become acutely aware that they have few options for doing so that could actually pass the House. On Wednesday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy highlighted the measure when he finally unveiled House Republicans’ proposal to raise the debt limit for one year in exchange for a series of spending cuts and policy changes. “The American people are tired of politicians who use Covid as an excuse for more extreme inflationary spending,” Mr. McCarthy said in a speech on the House floor. “If the money was authorized to fight the pandemic, what was not spent during the pandemic should not be spent after the pandemic is over.”

☆ A big macro issue is waiting to disrupt markets this summer that could cause the Fed to cut rates
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Yun Li | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The debt ceiling debacle in Washington has the potential to upend the financial market and prompt the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, Bank of America warned. The warning followed news that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. released his plan to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion for about a year. "Any economic damage could potentially be offset by earlier and/or larger Fed rate cuts. It recently signaled one more rate hike in 2023, while saying rate cuts are not its base case. Bank of America's economists estimated that federal expenditures would fall by 5% of GDP per year if the debt limit is not lifted.

☆ Republican McCarthy eyes $1.5 trln lift of US debt ceiling, spending cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Richard Cowan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

McCarthy said they would serve as the basis for negotiations between the two parties over raising the $31.4 trillion debt limit in the coming months. The White House reiterated its position that Congress should raise the $31.4 trillion debt limit without conditions, as it did three times under Biden's Republican predecessor, Donald Trump. At an appearance outside Washington, Biden said Republicans were threatening to push the United States into a historic default that would shake the world economy. McCarthy leads a fractious caucus that includes a sizeable contingent of hardline members who want sharp spending cuts and dismiss the risks of failure to act on the debt ceiling. So far House Republicans have not produced a budget plan of their own, a move that Biden contends would be a necessary starting point for negotiations on spending.

☆ House G.O.P. Unveils Debt Limit Bill Lifting Borrowing Cap for One Year
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Catie Edmondson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in a speech on the House floor that he would put the legislation to a vote next week. He urged his conference to unite around the measure in an attempt to speed up discussions with the White House amid growing anxiety about a looming default deadline, given the United States could run out of money to pay its bills within a few months. Even if Mr. McCarthy can get his own Republican caucus behind the bill, which is not at all guaranteed, it would be dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Mr. McCarthy described the effort as a way to get the White House and Democrats to engage on spending cuts at a moment when the nation’s debt has grown to about $31.4 trillion. “Now that we’ve introduced a clear plan for responsible debt limit increase,” Mr. McCarthy said, Democrats “have no more excuse” not to negotiate.

☆ McCarthy unveils debt ceiling bill that aims to cut big parts of Biden's agenda
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Chelsey Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks at a rally marking the 100th day of Republican control of the House in Washington D.C. on April 17, 2023. WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Wednesday released his plan to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion for about a year while attempting to repeal major components of President Joe Biden's agenda. "Now that we've introduced a clear plan for a responsible debt limit increase, they have no more excuse and refuse to negotiate," McCarthy said. McCarthy's announcement comes after days of speculation about the GOP proposal to temporarily raise the debt limit for certain cutbacks, such as a stall on non-defense discretionary spending. Justices are expected to rule on the student loan program by early summer.

☆ Biden slams McCarthy, tells him to 'take default off the table' in debt ceiling fight
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Emma Kinery | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

President Joe Biden on Wednesday slammed House Republicans for flirting with defaulting on the national debt, saying America is not "a deadbeat nation." Biden called the gambit by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., "really dangerous." "Reagan said debt ceiling brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans' benefits. We meet our obligations, and I made it clear to Speaker McCarthy how we should proceed to settle our differences." Biden released his budget proposal last month and has asked House Republicans to do so as well.

☆ House Republicans unveil their plan to raise the debt ceiling for just one year — and it already faces hurdles from its own party
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Kevin McCarthy unveiled his bill to raise the debt ceiling on Wednesday. On Wednesday, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy released his 320-page bill to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion, or until March 31, 2024, whichever comes first. And some Republicans don't even want to raise the debt ceiling at all. But McCarthy and Republicans have insisted that a hike to the debt ceiling needs to be accompanied by spending cuts. Earlier on Wednesday, the Problem Solvers Caucus — comprised of moderate Democrats and Republicans — unveiled their own plan to raise the debt ceiling, which included suspending the debt ceiling through December 31, 2023, to allow time to complete next year's budget, allowing for an automatic debt ceiling increase through February 28, 2025.

☆ Kevin McCarthy’s Debt-Ceiling Marker
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Washington is cruising toward another showdown over the federal debt ceiling, and Americans can be forgiven for turning the channel. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy laid out the House Republican offer on Monday, and it might even succeed if the GOP can stay united. “Debt limit negotiations are an opportunity to examine our nation’s finances,” Rep. McCarthy said in a speech at the New York Stock Exchange, and the picture isn’t pretty. U.S. debt held by the public is more than $25 trillion. Spending as a share of the economy is 23.7%, the Congressional Budget Office reported in February, and rising to 24.9% by 2033, a level reached only twice since 1946—in 2020 and 2021 when Congress shoveled money into the pandemic emergency.

☆ Kevin McCarthy Has Plan to Raise Debt Ceiling, and Republicans Have Questions
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Siobhan Hughes | Eric Bazail-Eimil | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) met behind closed doors with members of his conference Tuesday as he pushed to cobble together 218 votes from within his narrow House Republican majority for a plan to raise the debt ceiling before the government loses the ability to pay its bills. Republicans left a morning meeting saying that important details of the plan, which Mr. McCarthy sketched out one day earlier in a speech at the New York Stock Exchange, were still unclear. Among their questions: whether the plan would increase the debt limit by a specific amount or suspend it until a particular date; which policy components would hitch a ride on the plan; and whether it would move through legislative committees or be devised by Republican leadership and brought directly to the House floor.

☆ Kevin McCarthy Says House GOP Plans to Vote on Debt Limit, Spending Cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Andrew Duehren | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said House Republicans plan to pass legislation raising the debt ceiling and curbing federal spending in the coming weeks, moving to establish a solidified GOP position in the negotiations with President Biden over the nation’s borrowing limit. In a speech Monday at the New York Stock Exchange, Mr. McCarthy laid out House Republicans’ demands for agreeing to a debt-limit increase: They want Congress to place limits on federal spending, claw back Covid-19 aid and require Americans to work to receive federal benefits.

☆ McCarthy Proposes One-Year Debt Ceiling Increase Tied to Spending Cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Catie Edmondson | Jim Tankersley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON — Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday proposed a one-year debt ceiling increase paired with a set of spending cuts and policy changes, backing down substantially from earlier demands but making clear that Republicans would not raise the borrowing limit to avert a catastrophic debt default without conditions. “I want a responsible, sensible debt ceiling that puts us on an economic path to make America stronger. But that cannot happen if the president continues to ignore the problem.”Understand the U.S. Debt Ceiling Card 1 of 5 What is the debt ceiling? ”A no-strings-attached debt limit increase will not pass,” he said. The debt limit is expected to be breached as early as July unless Congress acts to raise it.

The GOP’s plan for a one-year debt limit increase, said McCarthy, would roll back domestic, non-defense spending to 2022 levels. Through his speech, McCarthy urged Wall Street to pressure the Biden administration to accept spending cuts. He also said that he wasn’t monitoring stock market conditions as he headed into debt ceiling negotiations. McCarthy expressed concern over these developments on Monday but said the Republican debt ceiling plan could solve some of those problems. “You can utilize the debt ceiling as the opportunity to do it,” he added.

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