House Republicans on Wednesday afternoon were asked to come together and pass the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023. Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has spent months crafting the 320-page bill, meant to serve as the opening bid in the GOP’s negotiation with President Joe Biden over raising the debt ceiling.
The bill passed, with all but four members of the Republican caucus giving McCarthy a much-needed win. He won’t have much time to savor it. In cobbling together this short-term victory, McCarthy has spent much of the capital he’d need to solve this Republican-created crisis in a way that lets him remain as speaker.
McCarthy has spent much of the capital he’d need to solve this Republican-created crisis in a way that lets him remain as speaker.
After a bruising fight to win the speaker’s gavel in January, McCarthy has opted to avoid controversy in the ranks, focusing on passing Republican-favored messaging bills that have no chance of becoming law. At the same time, his leadership team has struggled in the background to find a position on the debt ceiling that would satisfy the various factions within the caucus. Complicating matters has been the fact that 16 Republicans had never voted to raise the debt ceiling, per Axios, making their approval less than guaranteed.
When McCarthy finally introduced the bill last week, it wasn’t clear that it would have enough support to get over the line. That’s despite the massive cuts to spending it included, among them repealing a number of climate-related provisions and funding for the IRS in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Politico this week the bill was “closed — it’s not getting changed.” The choice before rank-and-file members would be to either stand with the draft as written or “give Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer a blank check, with no fiscal reforms whatsoever,” he insisted.
That bravado faltered Tuesday when it became clear that there were…
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