After weeks of debate within his caucus, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has announced the details of a plan that calls for raising the current $31.4 trillion debt ceiling for the next 12 months or so by around $1.5 trillion.
Officially called the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, the bill introduced by the Republican McCarthy proposes to eliminate some funds delegated to the Internal Revenue Service, while also putting a limit on discretionary spending and recouping monies delegated for pandemic relief that were never spent.
In reducing the budget for the IRS, McCarthy said his legislation will essentially do away with an earlier proposal to hire some 87,000 new agents for the agency. “That will save taxpayers $70 billion and protect families and small businesses from a weaponized IRS,” McCarthy remarked.
McCarthy added that the introduction of the legislation should prompt the White House and members of the Senate leadership to “sit down, negotiate and address” what he called the crisis of the looming federal budget and the possibility of the U.S. defaulting on its debts.
The prospects for McCarthy’s legislation remain uncertain in the House, while members of the Democrat majority in the Senate have already expressed opposition to the plan.
In introducing his bill, McCarthy remarked that “America is $31 billion in debt and Washington is on the clock.”
In order to win passage in the House, McCarthy’s bill must secure a minimum of 218 votes. Although Republicans currently hold a 222 to 212 majority, there is no guarantee that the legislation has the support of every member of the party’s caucus.
In response, President Biden has threatened to launch a full-scale assault on McCarthy’s proposal, remaking that the “American people should know about the competing economic visions of the country that are at stake right now.”
The Speaker said that he plans to schedule a vote in the House on his proposal sometime next week.
In testimony this past January Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the government could only pay its bills up to June without increasing the debt ceiling.
By Garry Boulard
