House approves the Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling bill as default deadline looms

House lawmakers have passed a piece of compromise legislation brokered between President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to avoid an unprecedented debt default with just days to spare.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which would lift the debt limit for nearly two years, overwhelmingly cleared the chamber Wednesday evening on a 314-117 vote.

"Tonight, the House took a critical step forward to prevent a first-ever default and protect our country's hard-earned and historic economic recovery," Biden said in a statement. "Neither side got everything it wanted. That's the responsibility of governing. I want to thank Speaker McCarthy and his team for negotiating in good faith, as well as Leader Jeffries for his leadership."

Congressional leaders have been saying for weeks that any bill to prevent a default must have bipartisan support.

"Was [the bill] everything I wanted? No. But sitting with one House, with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president who didn't want to meet with us, I think we did pretty dang good for the American public," McCarthy said during a press conference following the vote, referencing his frequent complaint that Biden wouldn't meet with him again after a February meeting until House Republicans passed a debt ceiling bill of their own.

Democrats during the floor debate reiterated a claim they've made for months: that House Republicans held the economy hostage by not agreeing to pass a clean debt limit bill.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries praised his members for pushing back against "extreme MAGA Republican efforts to jam right-wing cuts down the throat of the American people."

The 99-page bill cleared a procedural hurdle Wednesday afternoon with bipartisan support. Democratic lawmakers initially held back on voting on the rule needed to advance the legislation, leaving Republicans to be the only ones voting in favor of the rule for several minutes.

"I probably would've done the same thing," McCarthy said of Jeffries' choice to wait until the last minute to give his members the green light to vote. "Well played."

The vote came just days before the U.S. could run out of money to pay its bills, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

The bill now heads to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it will need 60 votes before it would go to Biden's desk. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said lawmakers are prepared to stay the weekend to pass the legislation, if needed.

What's in the bill

The bipartisan bill pairs a suspension of the debt limit to a package of spending cuts. It establishes spending caps for the federal budget while also making policy changes, including: a claw-back of approximately $27 billion in federal agencies intended to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and an overhaul of permitting reviews for energy projects.

The bill phases in higher age limits for work requirements on certain federal safety net programs like food stamps, lifting the maximum age from 50 to 54 by 2025. It also would create new exemptions that waive those requirements for all veterans and those experiencing homelessness, and young adults between 18-24-years old aging out of foster care.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the changes to the food stamp program could cost the government roughly $2.1 billion over the next decade.

The CBO forecasts the overall agreement would cut federal deficits by about $1.5 trillion over the next decade. That's just under 7% of what those deficits were projected to be prior to the deal. Most of the deficit reduction would come from caps on discretionary spending other than defense — which makes up a small portion of the federal budget.

Expected defections on both sides of the aisle

The high stakes negotiations for the deal and subsequent vote are a critical test for McCarthy as speaker. With his narrow majority, McCarthy had a bit of a balancing act — crafting a deal that satisfied the demands of the majority of his conference without alienating some of the Democratic lawmakers he needed to support the bill in order for it to pass.

A bloc of conservative members expressed their dismay at some of the provisions in the legislation, and argue McCarthy didn't align the bill close enough to a version the House passed in April.

"People want to compare to what they wanted," Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said ahead of the vote. "But they should compare to where we were at, which was we were going to get a clean debt ceiling with nothing."

GOP members left a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday night largely quashing the idea that disaffected members could move to oust McCarthy under a provision he agreed to during his fight for the gavel that allows any single lawmaker to bring up a snap vote to potentially oust the speaker.

Meanwhile, some Democratic members struggled between wanting to pass a bill to avoid a potentially catastrophic default and voting for legislation with provisions their constituents don't support, like work requirements and speeding up permitting on energy projects.

New Hampshire Rep. Annie Kuster told NPR Biden has been "very involved" in reaching out to members to boost support for the bill. The two spoke by phone about the legislation on Monday. Kuster chairs the center-left New Democrat Coalition, which provided a major portion of Democratic votes Wednesday night. Kuster, who voted for the bill, said she hopes the compromise deals paves the way for a new chapter in bipartisanship.

"Since the prior president and certainly since Jan. 6th, it's been very difficult in the Capitol working across the aisle. It's been very painful," she said. "And I think this whole agreement is a turning of a corner toward a more productive relationship between Republicans and Democrats."

Michigan Democrat Elissa Slotkin told reporters ahead of the vote that the deal is "imperfect" but necessary. She voted for the measure.

"There was a group of us who felt strongly that while we didn't like the bill and we didn't like the way it was negotiated in many ways, we weren't going to let our country go over a fiscal cliff and that had to be our guiding force," she said.

NPR's Lexie Schapitl, Ximena Bustillo, Vincent Acovino and Scott Horsley contributed to this report.

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