GOP House members eye unseating McCarthy over debt deal with Biden
5 Min Read
Several senior conservative members voice their complete opposition to the debt ceiling agreement reached between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden.
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President Joe Biden talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as they leave an annual St. Patrick's Day luncheon at the Capitol on March 17, 2023 (AP)
Senior GOP Congress members are calling for the unseating of US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the debt ceiling agreement he reached with US President Joe Biden less than a week ago.
Biden and McCarthy agreed on a scheme to avert a US debt default last Sunday, which includes raising the borrowing ceiling, currently at $31.4 trillion while reducing government public expenses.
While non-defense spending would be capped, the military budget is expected to be increased to around $885 billion, an 11% boost from the current budget.
Read more: US debt ceiling agreement reached 'in principle', not fully there yet
Has to be done
In an interview for Politico published on Tuesday, Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) became the first conservative House member to explicitly announce plans to revolt against McCarthy.
Bishop went even further and confirmed to the newspaper that he would "absolutely" use his legislative authority to trigger a confidence vote against the Speaker, known as the motion to vacate - which requires only one lawmaker for the motion to start.
“It is inescapable to me. It has to be done.”
“I'm ready to go figure out how to fix this s*** sandwich. This can still be fixed but the road gets narrower to fixing it every time,” Bishop added. “And Kevin McCarthy's been sitting there in leadership.”
But he continued that he would want support from other members before he makes his move. “I don’t make single decisions like that alone. And so it depends on what the members who have courage," he said.
Betrayal of GOP members
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla) also said this action is one of the options depending on the outcome of the vote on the issue on Wednesday.
“If a majority of Republicans are against a piece of legislation and you use Democrats to pass it, that would immediately be a black-letter violation of the deal we had with McCarthy,” Gaetz told Newsmax on Tuesday. “And it would likely trigger an immediate motion to vacate."
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said conservative leaders will face a “reckoning" if the bill was passed.
“The Republican conference right now has been torn asunder,” he said in a press briefing held by Congress Republicans.
“Today, we ought to be seeking to have something that we can report out unanimously, and right now this bill, in my opinion, is not that — so they either need to amend it, change it or pull it down.”
Roy further commented on the subject on a radio show, saying that the agreement is a “betrayal of the power-sharing arrangement that we put in place” among the House GOP.
If we can't crush the bill before it hits the floor, “then we’re going to have to then regroup and figure out the whole leadership arrangement again.”
“Not one Republican” should vote in favor of the deal, he added.
Not yet
While the agreement draft is still being written to be presented to Congress and no official confirmation yet on the details has been announced, reports suggest that the ceiling would be suspended for two years but would be capped for non-defense discretionary expenses until January 2025 and increased by just 1 percent after that.
The deal's expiry date means that Congress would not have to vote on the issue again in 2024, ensuring that another debt-row crisis will not occur during the presidential elections of that year.
If the legislation is passed by the lower chamber, it will proceed to the Senate, where other challenges might slow down the adoption of the law.
Warnings issued by US Secretary Janet Yellen of the “catastrophic” disaster of a debt default are not the end of the problems ahead.
A Politico report suggested that raising the debt ceiling is not guaranteed to relieve the American economy, and some painful financial and political pressure is likely to take place, especially on the administration of US President Joe Biden and national banks.
Raising the debt ceiling would lead to an abrupt increase in borrowing by the Treasury and would leave financial institutions, which are already in a fragile state after the record crash of three major banks in March, suffering from more drain in deposits and a declined cash volume, which, in turn, would squeeze their ability to provide individuals and business with loans, the newspaper argued.
Further banking turmoil raises the chances of an economic recession, which would harm Biden's campaign for reelection in 2024.
