Biden announces agreement despite bipartisan worries.

“Prevents the worst possible crisis.”

President Joe Biden has championed the new bipartisan budget agreement, which aims to avoid a default on the national debt. The administration and House Republican leaders have been negotiating for weeks to increase the country’s borrowing limit amid ballooning government debt. Following the announcement that both sides reached an “agreement in principle,” the president said the deal eliminates “the threat of catastrophic default off the table” and ensures the nation’s economic recovery moves ahead.

Biden repeated the White House talking point of the agreement being a compromise in a divided government, meaning that “no one gets everything they want.” He added that it keeps Democrats’ key priorities, such as Social Security and Medicare, intact.

The legislation—the Fiscal Responsibility Act—will now head to both chambers of Congress, where the president has urged lawmakers to pass the agreement.

Does House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Have Enough Votes?

The critical question in the nation’s capital is whether House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has enough votes. Biden conceded he did not know if McCarthy had the votes. “I expect he does, or I don’t think he would have made the agreement,” Biden stated.

What Republicans Are Saying

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been vocal in their disappointment about the debt limit deal. Some Democrats say the president made too many concessions, while several members of the GOP caucus argue that McCarthy gave up too much and failed to attach many of the provisions inside the GOP’s proposed “Limit, Save, Grow Act” to the new agreement.

• Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) thinks Democrats are the winners, and they “got everything they wanted with this bill and don’t have to defend their reckless spending prior to the 2024 election.”
• Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) asserted that Republicans are the only party that can restore fiscal sanity to Congress. Still, the deal with the administration “fails to uphold that responsibility,” the congressman said.
• Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said this is another example of “half-baked compromises” and why the federal government faces a $31 trillion national debt.
• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) is confident that the GOP still possesses the momentum in Washington, noting that “this is a game of inches” and urged everyone to read the bill before making a final decision.
• Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) called the tentative debt ceiling agreement a “big get for Republicans,” adding that “it’s going to save $1.5 trillion over the course of the next ten years.”

Despite fiscal concerns, the bipartisan budget agreement is a step forward in avoiding a default on the national debt and ensuring the nation’s economic recovery moves ahead.