Budget Director says nobody gets everything they want in debt ceiling deal.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 was born out of a debt ceiling crisis that threatened to cause a default. But thanks to a good-faith effort from both sides of the negotiating table, a compromise solution was reached.

According to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, this compromise is a good outcome, even if some may be disappointed with the result. “This agreement represents a compromise, which means no one gets everything they want and hard choices had to be made. Negotiations require give and take. That’s the responsibility of governing,” Young told reporters on May 30.

Rank and File Complaints

Young and Steve Ricchetti, a presidential adviser, worked tirelessly over the past two weeks to find common ground with Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) and Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who represented House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

However, when details of the plan were announced on May 28, it drew criticism from members of Congress who believed both President Joe Biden and McCarthy had given too much ground to their opposition.

Some members of the House Freedom Caucus complained that McCarthy failed to leverage Republican unity to make extensive fiscal reforms.

• “Speaker McCarthy had a mandate from the American people with a powerful negotiation position of a unified Republican party … to hold the line for the bill that we passed,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said in a May 30 press event, referring to the Limit, Save, Grow Act, passed by the Republican-controlled House in April.
• Perry, chairman of the caucus, said the bipartisan deal negotiated by McCarthy “totally fails to deliver.”
• “The Republican conference right now has been torn asunder, and we are working hard to try to put it back together again this weekend by making sure that this bill gets stopped,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said.

McCarthy had maintained that his primary aims in negotiating with the president were to permit no increase in the debt ceiling unless accompanied by spending cuts and to reject any move to increase taxes.

“Everything else is open for negotiations,” the speaker said.

Common Ground

The agreement rests on the middle ground between the parties, Young said. “Individual people have issues with different parts of the bill,” Young said.