The effort to avoid a US default moves to the Senate after the House of Representatives approved a measure Wednesday night to suspend the country’s debt limit and cap some federal spending.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said they expect the bill to pass the Senate in the coming days and be sent to President Joe Biden. for your signiture.
The US Treasury Department has warned that it will run out of money to pay the nation’s bills on Monday if the debt limit is not raised.
The measure passed the House by a vote of 314-117 despite objections from Republicans who said it did not go far enough in cutting spending and Democrats who said it cut too much.
Seventy-one lawmakers from the majority Republican Party voted against the bill, as did 46 Democrats.
In a statement following Wednesday’s vote, Biden hailed the deal as a “bipartisan compromise.”
“It protects the key priorities and accomplishments of the last two years, including the historic investments that are creating good jobs across the country. And it honors my commitment to safeguard Americans’ health care and protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It protects critical programs that millions of working families, students, and veterans count on.”
McCarthy told reporters that getting the bill passed “was not an easy fight.” He stressed budget savings and criticized Democrats who want to separate the spending debate from the task of suspending the debt limit.
“We put the citizens of the United States first and we didn’t do it by taking the easy way out,” McCarthy said. “We didn’t do it the way people did in the past by just picking it up, we decided you had to spend less, and we achieved that goal.”
McCarthy said he intends to follow Wednesday’s action with more efforts to cut federal spending.
The bill now heading to the Senate includes waiving the existing borrowing limit through January 2025 and a two-year budget deal that keeps federal spending stable in 2024 and increases it by 1% in 2025. The measure does not raise taxes or stop the total national debt from rising, perhaps by another $3 trillion or more over the next year and a half.
Other pieces of legislation include a reduction in the number of new agents hired by the nation’s tax collection agency, the IRS, a requirement that requires states to repay the federal government $30 billion in unpaid assistance. spent by the coronavirus pandemic and that the upper age group for those forced to work to receive food aid be extended from 50 to 54 years.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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