A Debt Ceiling Win Cools GOP Tensions—For Now

But some say House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has kept his No. 2, Steve Scalise, at arm’s length.

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Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in the House Chamber on May 17, 2022. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

House Republicans eked out a crucial win Wednesday by passing a bill to raise the debt limit. Yet the victory has only temporarily eased tensions between the conference’s top two leaders, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, as the razor-thin GOP majority looks ahead to more high-stakes challenges.

In the weeks leading up to the successful vote, McCarthy allies have portrayed Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, as a bit player. News reports with key details of the internal negotiations rarely included Scalise’s name and instead highlighted McCarthy loyalists as consequential figures. 

Those in Scalise’s world say such claims mischaracterize the majority leader’s role on a leadership team that overcame tough odds to pass a deal with a narrow GOP majority.

“Steve Scalise is always in the room,” a former senior leadership aide told The Dispatch.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Odds are Biden ultimately comes to the table and we get some sort of compromise nobody likes and everybody blames everyone else for. In other words, our political system will work just fine.

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    Jconstantino199

    This bill won't even get a vote in the Senate. The only way this is a "victory" for McCarthy is that when he causes a national default and drives the country into an immediate recession he'll have a talking point (ie- "It was those nasty Democrats who wouldn't give in to extortion that caused this")... while the rest of us have to deal with the fallout of a GOP-caused recession. Yay!

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      Lchrisberg

      Will an apology and admission of error be forthcoming from you when there is no national default? There will certainly be no reason for one.
      And if there is a recession, it will have been caused by the Fed raising interest rates to counter the massive inflation the profligate spending by the donkeys caused and NOT the forgoing of that spending.
      Quite frankly I don't care if the Donkeys want to blame this and every rained out baseball game on the GOP. As long as spending is brought under control and a leash is put around Big Brother, I'm good with a recession. It's a natural process after the irresponsible spending and the inflation it caused.

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        Jconstantino199

        If there is no national default it will have been in SPITE of McCarthy's actions, not because of them.

        Either enough of the GOP blinks and votes with the Dems to pass a clean debt ceiling increase over the objections of the maga caucus (who will then exact vengeance on McCarthy), or President Biden will pull the trigger on one of his options (such as the "Constitutional Option") to unilaterally end the debt ceiling entirely (the SCOTUS will uphold whatever Biden proposes, if for no other reason than not to be the scapegoats for a default).

        Either way McCarthy will lose this... and YOU'LL get to thank the Dems for saving us from a GOP default.

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          Ben Connelly

          SCOTUS will uphold unconstitutional action on Biden’s part to avoid being scapegoated for a debt default? Hahahaha are you sure about that? Would you like to get money on that? I can count at least 4 votes for “consequences be damned it’s unconstitutional,” and maybe another 2-5.

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          Lchrisberg

          Funny. All of it. Really.

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    JohnF

    It's difficult to characterize this bill as a "win" when the only way forward from here will be to remove many of the items in it that were critical to its passage in the first place. McCarthy apparently spent weeks cajoling members of his caucus into voting for the bill, mainly by including items in the bill that he will never be able to deliver.

    In a typical negotiation, each side goes into the process with an opening stance that includes things that they are prepared to give in on as well as absolute "must-haves". McCarthy's problem is that many of the things that he will likely have to concede in order to reach a final deal are absolute "must-haves" for members of his own caucus. If he concedes on those items, he will lose the votes that he relied on to reach the bare majority that passed this bill. If he doesn't, the bill goes nowhere.

    McCarthys problem is further compounded by the fact that the Democrats (and virtually everyone else watching this) know this. This puts him in an exceedingly weak bargaining position, since the other side knows that he doesn't have the support within his own party to carry through with a negotiated deal.

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  4. Donnybrook

    So the ability of the majority to pass a bill that has little to no chance in the Senate is defined as a win?

    I guess with expectations so low, anything can be described as a win.

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      Lchrisberg

      Yes, because there is an election coming up and legislation that one party passes and the other party fails has frequently had an impact on the next election. It serves the purpose of proving clear distinctions between the parties so that political change can result in better laws passed.

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        JohnF

        The next election is in November of 2024. The government runs out of room to fund its obligations in July of 2023.

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  5. DTruitt

    When there is nothing negative to write about a successful House leadership by the GOP, then pull something out of your ass, print it, and pretend it's true so that you and your political allies in the Dem party can continue to snipe like a bunch of teenaged girls who suddenly find that they are no longer the most popular girls in school.

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      Stephanie

      It’s a little soon to talk of a “successful House leadership” because they barely got enough votes for a bill that is DOA in the Senate. The next iteration of that bill is going to be an interesting process to watch because some of the folks who voted Aye after having their arms twisted have already said they’ll not make any concessions on the next bill.

      It’s also interesting that McCarthy decided to ditch regular order and pull this bill together the Nancy Pelosi way they always disparaged.

      You have to give McCarthy credit for achieving the first step. But as they used to say in the cartoons or maybe the 3 Stooges (?), the next step is a doozy.

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      1. DTruitt

        It only takes one vote to win in the House, unlike the Senate.

        Of course, this bill will not be the one signed into law, everyone knows that. But if McCarthy had not been able to pull his caucus together to pass a bill that both extended the debt limit and required spending cuts that all Republicans demand from the spend crazy profligate Dems in the White House and Senate, then the GOP would have had little leverage in a negotiation.

        All the last three months the lefty partisan Dems and media (again, I repeat myself) have been yakking constantly that McCarthy could not get it done.

        Then when McCarthy gets it done, the lefty partisan Dems and media pull the ole rhetorical trick of pretending that what they said for three months would never happen was in fact easy peasy, bound to happen, required no skill or power, and otherwise not worthy of mention.

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          Stephanie

          I think I’ll wait and see what happens. I can appreciate that McCarthy’s between a rock and a hard place.

          Unless the hardliners are all hat and no cattle.

          Some of them claim they will never vote to raise the debt ceiling. I guess you could call them “anarchists.” If I were McCarthy I’d consider them a real problem if I can only lose 5 votes.

          And when push comes to shove, when he puts together a bill that’ll pass in the Senate, he will lose those 5 votes and probably more—if those Freedom Caucus types stick to their guns. Remember they all think their voters are going to be angry if they cave.

          So he’ll need Democrats to pass any bill that has to make it through the Senate. If that happens he stands to get ousted as Speaker. Supposedly. I wonder how likely that is—is anyone else going to get any better results?

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          Jconstantino199

          McCarthy DIDN'T get it done.

          After months of wrangling his caucus he managed to produce a bill that even he concedes won't even get a vote in the Senate. The only "victory" for him here is that when HE causes our nation to go into default and triggers a world-wide recession he gets a political talking point out of it... ie- "It's all the fault of those nasty Democrats who refused to give in to our blackmail that caused all of this!!"

          Such winning.

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    2. Jimlafferty1993

      What?

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      1. DTruitt

        Welcome to the real world of logic and politics. I know, it's so very hard for lefty Dem partisans to understand the art of negotiation, how power matters, and how power is created in a negotiation. Lefty Dem partisans are totally clueless in the fine arts of negotiation.

        Back in the day when the labor unions actually had a lot of power, the Dems were much better at negotiating, guys like FDR and Truman understood the fine arts of the process. But the unions are dead or moribund, FDR and Truman are dead, and so you only have your wholly owned major media to trumpet all the reasons why Dems don't have to negotiate.

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          Jconstantino199

          If power is what matters, I'm assuming that you'll be fine with Biden (at the last second) using the "Constitutional Option" (ie- that the faith and credit of the US can never come into question, therefore the Debt Limit is an unconstitutional construct) and simply declare that the Debt Limit doesn't exist, and throw it to the SCOTUS to say otherwise. The SCOTUS will NOT allow themselves to be the scapegoat for causing the nation to default on it's debts, and will rule to uphold Biden's declaration.

          This action by McCarthy will only empower Biden.

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