‘Surrender’: Chorus of Republicans Disappointed With Debt Ceiling Agreement

Many Republicans are expressing their disappointment over some of the components inside the tentative debt ceiling agreement between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

McCarthy clarified details of the deal in a late Saturday night call with his GOP colleagues. A chorus of House Republicans took to Twitter to share their disappointment, with one representative calling it a “surrender.”

“I listened to Speaker McCarthy earlier tonight outline the deal with President Biden and I am appalled by the debt ceiling surrender,” tweeted Rep. Ken Buck (R-Co.). “The bottom line is that the U.S. will have $35 trillion of debt in January 2025. That is completely unacceptable.”

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said the deal would be challenging to accept for any person claiming to be a conservative.

“No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote,” he tweeted.

Other Republicans in Washington were not as quick to dismiss the efforts to come to an agreement with the White House.

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) stated that the deal provided both “impressive wins” and “some serious concerns.”

“Look forward to text. Nice to see the 72 hour rule being applied,” he tweeted.

Over the next day, Republican and Democratic negotiating teams will finalize legislative text and the bill will go to the House and Senate next week. Biden urged both chambers to pass the agreement immediately.

While McCarthy told reporters that he would not share specifics of the bill-in-writing during the press conference, the Speaker of the House offered some hints about what the GOP leadership achieved during the weeks-long discussions.

“After weeks of negotiations, we have come to an agreement in principle. We still have a lot of work to do, but I believe this is an agreement in principle that is worthy of the American people,” McCarthy said. “It has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce, [and] rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes, no new government programs.”

Soon after the presser, a one-page outline of the deal—the Fiscal Responsibility Act—circulated online. The document revealed a two-year spending deal and two years of debt limits that also includes limiting topline federal spending to 1 percent annual growth for the next six years. It does not consist of adjustments to Medicaid or student loans. An additional provision in the agreement claws back $400 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Global Health Fund and $1.5 billion from its “Vaccine Distribution and Monitoring Program.”

It has also been suggested that $1.5 billion of the $80 billion budget increase for the IRS has been rescinded.

White House talking points were also sent to reporters, accepting that “negotiations require give and take” and “that’s how divided government works.”

“But the President successfully protected his and Democrats’ core priorities and the historic economic progress we’ve made over the past two years,” the document claimed.

The Vote

There are already some concerns that McCarthy will be unable to secure enough votes on his side of the aisle.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Co.) revealed on Twitter that she will be a “‘No’ on this deal. We can do better.”

“Our base didn’t volunteer, door knock, and fight so hard to get us the majority for this kind of compromise deal with Joe Biden,” she tweeted. “Our voters deserve better than this. We work for them.”

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) tweeted “hard pass,” noting that Democrats had agreed to “virtually none” of the policies integral in the Republicans’ proposed Limit, Save, Grow Act.

The Biden-McCarthy proposal is “insanity,” says Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who confirmed that he is “not gonna vote to bankrupt our country” with a $4 trillion debt ceiling increase without any significant cuts, as that “is not what we agreed to.”

The House Freedom Caucus previously noted that it would consider supporting a debt limit increase if spending returned to the fiscal year 2022 levels and annual spending growth was capped at 1 percent over the next decade.

For now, until the official plan is released, many lawmakers are taking a wait-and-see approach.