Vox - What you need to know about the debt ceiling dealhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2023-06-11T19:01:24-04:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/234797942023-06-11T19:01:24-04:002023-06-11T19:01:24-04:00The dysfunction among House Republicans is getting worse
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<img alt="Kevin McCarthy, surrounded by reporters, stands beneath a balcony featuring ornate marble columns, a decorative red and gold curtain, and a marble sculpture of a woman." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Nx6B0Pjq3GEsBJ02Cx1AqryHY_I=/0x0:5216x3912/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72361080/GettyImages_1496466646.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks with media this week after a hard-right faction of fellow GOP lawmakers blocked a bill in retaliation for McCarthy’s debt ceiling deal with the Biden administration. | Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>A mutiny last week among the GOP’s far-right faction spells trouble for Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and everyone else.</p> <p id="gx8NsD">House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s compromises with far-right members of his own Republican party to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/7/23543163/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-of-the-house-vote-elected">gain leadership of the House in January</a> may be coming back to haunt him. </p>
<p id="pfjazP">Last week, 11 members of the far-right GOP contingent known as the House Freedom Caucus expressed their displeasure with McCarthy, voting with Democrats to block a procedural vote on two Republican bills to <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?528524-2/house-session-part-1&live=">limit regulations on gas stoves</a>, as well as halting business on the House floor for days in what has been described widely as a revolt. </p>
<p id="kUG1QD">Seemingly innocuous legislation restricting <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/3/21/23593644/gas-stove-pollution-science-health-risks">regulations on gas stoves</a> would, in theory, be popular among Republicans. Scientific findings suggesting that <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/1/27/22902490/gas-stoves-methane-climate-pollution-health-off">such appliances can cause health problems</a> became a major touchstone in the right’s<a href="https://twitter.com/mattgaetz/status/1613532810668539905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1613532810668539905%7Ctwgr%5E9e16b244a55bc7b8230875925832ec0aca52dfc8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fuproxx.com%2Fviral%2Fmatt-gaetz-gas-stove-photo%2F"> culture war</a> earlier this year, with Republicans <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-republicans-aim-defend-gas-stove-owners-freedoms-rcna87884">falsely claiming that the government would ban gas stoves</a>. </p>
<p id="7ATS1z">Those bills, however, became collateral damage, at least for now, in the ongoing fight between McCarthy and the far-right wing of the Republican party — a fight that <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/30/23742472/debt-ceiling-deal-agreement-biden-mccarthy-republicans-snap-student-loans">has threatened to boil over</a> since McCarthy and the White House managed to avoid a cataclysmic national default with their debt limit deal late last month. With House Republicans in disarray, leadership announced it <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mccarthy-faces-sudden-challenge-hardliners-after-us-debt-ceiling-bill-2023-06-07/">would meet Monday to attempt to move forward with planned votes</a>.</p>
<p id="cKdekN">Ultimately, the drama isn’t just about a vote to advance legislation on gas stoves; it’s a referendum on McCarthy’s leadership, and whether he can keep his conference on his side to maintain his position and pass critical legislation as the end of the government’s fiscal year draws nearer. </p>
<p id="Utk6jR">McCarthy’s power is contingent on a number of compromises he made with Freedom Caucus members in January, including a concession to the motion to vacate. That would allow any one member to offer a motion to “vacate the chair,” initiating a new election for speaker at any time, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/6/23542817/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-deal-congress-debt-ceiling">according to Vox’s Andrew Prokop</a>. Now that possibility hovers in the background as the House’s ultraconservatives continue to withhold their support from McCarthy in their quest to move their party further to the right.</p>
<h3 id="NyHyvK">Freedom Caucus members expressed their fury over a debt limit deal</h3>
<p id="pZFjbb">Republicans <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/30/23742472/debt-ceiling-deal-agreement-biden-mccarthy-republicans-snap-student-loans">had hoped for greater spending cuts as part of a deal to suspend the debt limit</a>; in exchange for suspending it until 2025, Republicans wanted increased work requirements for people to access Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and sought caps on non-defense spending through 2033. The compromise legislation <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/31/snap-work-requirements-debt-ceiling-deal/">did change work requirements for some SNAP recipients</a> and will end the three-year pause on student loan repayments by the end of the summer. </p>
<p id="Zqn0Sl">With just a 10-seat majority in the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate, however, McCarthy and Republican leadership have had to concede to their Democratic colleagues to get anything done, spiting the far-right Republicans, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/us/politics/chip-roy-debt-ceiling-deal.html">particularly Rep. Chip Roy</a> (R-TX).</p>
<p id="EwXjL0">But even the legislators trying to disrupt McCarthy and Congress can’t seem to agree on what it is they actually want to move the voting process forward this week, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/08/house-gop-stalls-out/">McCarthy</a> and other leaders. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said on Thursday, however, that his faction had had “encouraging” talks with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA).</p>
<p id="lpDHZt">The battle puts McCarthy in a particularly difficult position. Any concession to the far-right risks alienating more moderate Republicans, some of whom are already very publicly frustrated with the mutiny in their ranks.</p>
<p id="8lt5Iy">“This is, in my opinion, political incontinence on our part. We are wetting ourselves […] and can’t do anything about it,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/08/house-gop-stalls-out/">told the Washington Post.</a> “This is insane. This is not the way a governing majority is expected to behave, and, frankly, I think there’ll be a political cost to it.”</p>
<h3 id="u2ItDk">McCarthy’s relationship with the House Freedom Caucus has always been tense</h3>
<p id="S0IHSs">McCarthy’s mandate to lead has never been strong; you might remember January’s <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/01/07/mccarthy-wins-speaker-election-finally/#:~:text=The%20six%20%E2%80%9Cpresent%E2%80%9D%20votes%20lowered,to%20deliver%20his%20victory%20speech.">dramatic 15 rounds of voting for the speakership</a>, caused in part by opposition from his party’s ultraconservative caucus. </p>
<p id="S5UxPW">McCarthy had, through<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/23/us/politics/kevin-mccarthy-marjorie-taylor-greene.html"> developing a relationship with far-right Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene</a>, sought to court that extreme wing of his party in order to avoid the pitfalls of the previous Republican speakers, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/speaker-john-boehner-retiring-from-congress-at-the-end-of-october-214056">John Boehner</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/us/politics/paul-ryan-speaker.html">Paul Ryan</a>. But his relationship alone with Taylor Greene, the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/marjorie-taylor-greene-blames-internet-qanon-beliefs-1234657579/">former QAnon follower</a> elected to Congress in 2020, could not win his GOP opponents — McCarthy had to agree to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/7/23543163/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-of-the-house-vote-elected">several measures</a>, including restoring a rule that allows any single member of the House to trigger a recall vote on the speaker.</p>
<p id="k0w0iF">Not every part of the agreement between McCarthy and the Freedom Caucus holdouts has been made public, but as <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/6/23542817/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-deal-congress-debt-ceiling">Vox’s Prokop</a> wrote in January, those agreements fall into three major categories: government spending, including on appropriations and the debt ceiling; the snap-election rule change; and committee assignments for Freedom Caucus holdouts, including on the influential Rules Committee.</p>
<p id="zlGZop">Any legislation to adjust the debt ceiling was going to be deeply contentious. The GOP has long used the nation’s debt, and efforts to raise the debt limit, as a cudgel to attempt to pass aggressive spending cuts for social programs. During <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-fiscal-fights-of-the-obama-administration/">President Obama’s first term</a>, House Republicans tried to enact dollar-for-dollar spending cuts for debt ceiling increases; that failed, but the administration <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/30/politics/debt-ceiling-obama-spending-cuts/index.html">eventually agreed to deep spending cuts in exchange for three debt limit increases</a>.</p>
<p id="QQXJyn"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/us/politics/chip-roy-debt-ceiling-deal.html">Roy</a> had worked alongside Republican leadership to draft far more extreme debt ceiling legislation than what ultimately passed last month. Roy called the final deal a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/30/mccarthy-chip-roy-speaker-deal/">betrayal</a>” of conservatives and the agreement the Freedom Caucus members made with McCarthy to advance his speakership.</p>
<p id="F4Dn9d">As <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/30/23742472/debt-ceiling-deal-agreement-biden-mccarthy-republicans-snap-student-loans">Vox’s Li Zhou</a> wrote before the debt limit vote, any compromise with Democrats and perceived betrayal of Roy and the Freedom Caucus agreements over the debt ceiling deal were likely to spell trouble for McCarthy:</p>
<blockquote><p id="7IBEex">Looming over the vote is also an unspoken threat against McCarthy’s leadership, which, according to House rules, can be challenged if just one member wants to do so. A majority of the House, however, would have to vote to remove him as Speaker, and it’s unclear whether there are enough votes from either party to achieve that.</p></blockquote>
<p id="CCoEqF">This week’s obstruction by Roy and his compatriots falls conspicuously short of calling for McCarthy to vacate the chair but reminds McCarthy of the sway they hold not just over his leadership, but the work of Congress, too.</p>
<h3 id="uXSqnC">McCarthy risks alienating moderate Republicans, too</h3>
<p id="3OMqyw">McCarthy has outwardly expressed confidence that the different factions of his party will come to an agreement and get the Republican agenda back on track. “We’ve been through this before; you know we’re in a small majority,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/us/politics/mccarthy-house-republicans-mutiny.html">McCarthy said Wednesday</a>. “I don’t take this job because it’s easy. We’ll work through this, and we’ll even be stronger.”</p>
<p id="M3JdSk">For now, it seems as though McCarthy’s power is even further blunted by the far-right contingent in his own party — and it’s not clear how he’ll bring them into the fold without alienating more moderate factions of his own party, much less the Democrats he’ll need to pass future legislation.</p>
<p id="tmyOT3">Indeed, some more moderate Republicans are already frustrated with the party’s move to the right, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/08/mccarthy-republican-leadership-abortion-00101045">Politico reported Wednesday</a>. A plan to put forward a bill codifying restrictions on federal spending on abortion — commonly called the Hyde Amendment — reportedly angered South Carolina <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/09/us/politics/nancy-mace.html">Rep. Nancy Mace</a>, who has argued that the party needs to move toward the center on some issues to avoid alienating voters.</p>
<p id="DZeWHZ">Whether McCarthy can manage the opposing factions of his party — and indeed, if he can keep his tenuous grip on the speakership — is unclear. That will have significant consequences in the long term if the pattern of obstruction continues, particularly when it comes to funding the government and avoiding a shutdown in the fall.</p>
<p id="Ipq5PR">“I’ve got serious concerns as we go into the appropriations process about how antics like this taking down a rule can impact the ability for us to do our basic job of funding the government,” Womack told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/08/us/politics/kevin-mccarthy-house-republicans-mutiny.html">New York Times</a> Wednesday. “It was already going to be a pretty heavy lift, but it is a lift that is going to be made heavier if this is what we are going to be facing.”</p>
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https://www.vox.com/politics/23754641/mccarthy-gop-house-freedom-caucusEllen Ioanes2023-06-01T23:27:31-04:002023-06-01T23:27:31-04:00The biggest policy changes in the debt ceiling deal, explained
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<img alt="Kevin McCarthy surrounded by reporters" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MXRoj545wSgDklQ_k2pbY2Yk790=/454x0:7739x5464/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72325470/1258295128.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks to members of the media at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on May 30, 2023. Republican and Democratic leaders scrambled on May 29 to secure congressional support for a bill aimed at avoiding a US debt default. | Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>How the legislation to avert an economic crisis would affect student loans, food aid, the IRS, and more.</p> <p id="meuEO2">House Republicans took the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/5/9/23715753/debt-ceiling-limit-default-deal-crisis" data-source="encore">debt ceiling</a> hostage — but Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to set the hostage free for a relatively small ransom payment.</p>
<p id="pUAwIk">The deal struck by negotiators for <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden" data-source="encore">President Biden</a> and McCarthy, which has now been passed by both houses of Congress, is no major overhaul of American public policy. The White House managed to avert sweeping cuts to domestic spending, which will instead effectively be held at something close to the status quo (though a cut when accounting for inflation). And on a set of other policy issues where Republicans <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/4/19/23690167/debt-ceiling-bill-house-republicans">made big demands</a>, Democrats granted only some limited concessions.</p>
<p id="UN3iiG">The deal certainly includes some policy changes progressives do not like — they’d prefer domestic spending not be cut at all, and they dislike new work requirements for food stamp beneficiaries ages 50 to 54, among other things. </p>
<p id="mchc2Z">But if you keep in mind that Democrats and Republicans were always going to have to negotiate over spending levels at some point this year (to avert a government shutdown this fall), it’s not clear that Republicans’ use of the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip even got them anything they wouldn’t have won later anyway. </p>
<p id="vnBDRg">Rather than an extremist GOP’s attempt to force Democrats into unthinkable concessions or else trigger an economic crisis, the outcome here ultimately looked a whole lot like an ordinary congressional deal reached with the help of an imminent deadline. </p>
<p id="st26EY">While there was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/29/mccarthy-debt-deal-biden-00099175">some grumbling from the right</a>, the bill ultimately passed by a wide margin — in the House, 314-117, with 71 Republicans and 46 Democrats voting against. In the Senate, the vote was 63-36.</p>
<p id="6xLQ7K">The measure marks a shift in the Republican Party compared to the last major debt ceiling showdown in 2011. Back then, the GOP majority brought to power in the Tea Party wave sought extreme spending cuts, including big changes to Medicare and Social Security. That GOP conference also proved chaotic and nearly ungovernable by its leaders. </p>
<p id="gxvXTs">Yet true-believing anti-spending ideologues have seen their influence dwindle in the Trump and post-Trump eras. GOP leaders decided early on not to demand any Medicare and Social Security cuts in these talks, and the eventual deal leaves Medicaid untouched, too. </p>
<p id="vXDKNS">Most in the party would still like to be <em>seen</em> as spending cutters, but in practice the energy is around culture war fights. That made the current deal — which uses various gimmicks and accounting tricks that will let Republicans claim they made substantial cuts to domestic spending, while letting Democrats avert many of the actual consequences of those cuts — possible.</p>
<p id="sWQ617">The Biden White House, meanwhile, deflated liberal commentators’ and activists’ pleas that the president <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/10/23542845/joe-biden-debt-ceiling-kevin-mccarthy">use executive authority</a> in some way to effectively raise the debt ceiling on his own. Officials <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/08/debt-ceiling-14th-amendment-biden/">saw</a> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/janet-yellen-dismisses-minting-1-trillion-coin-to-avoid-default-11674417541">various</a> practical, legal, and political drawbacks that made them very reluctant to go down that road. Instead — after climbing down from an initial stance that they wouldn’t negotiate at all — Biden’s team engaged with Republicans in hopes they could get a reasonable deal. And they think they’ve succeeded.</p>
<p id="9iRhSq">Here’s what’s in the deal. —<em>Andrew Prokop</em></p>
<h3 id="zKGyVT">How big are the budget cuts? </h3>
<p id="BwHuAL">The deal negotiated by the Biden White House and House Republicans cuts some domestic programs in 2024 and limits spending growth to 1 percent in fiscal year 2025. That will still amount to a cut, after accounting for inflation.</p>
<p id="IBDU90">Almost two-thirds of the $6 trillion federal budget is mandatory spending on programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that will happen without any action by <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress" data-source="encore">Congress</a>. The rest is determined by Congress, and that is the bucket that will be affected by the debt limit deal.</p>
<p id="s4hQje">The cuts are going to land disproportionately on programs that help the poor and on administration, which also affects the people who rely on government programs. Some discretionary spending — on the military and for veterans — is actually going to increase. But the rest, including funding for <a href="https://www.vox.com/child-care" data-source="encore">child care</a>, low-income housing, the national parks, and more, will be subject to a cut for the next two years. </p>
<p id="yjIbcM">The exact cuts are supposed to be set by legislation that Congress will pass later this year. Should lawmakers fail to pass those spending bills, automatic spending cuts of 1 percent across the board would occur instead. (The incentive for Congress to pass the spending bills is that these automatic cuts would include the military, which all parties involved want to exempt.) </p>
<p id="OXxkW9"><a href="https://twitter.com/LisaDNews/status/1663233962783789056">Assorted accounting tricks </a>could also reduce the actual spending cuts and hold federal spending effectively flat — though in a time of inflation, flat spending is really a cut when considering the purchasing power of each dollar.</p>
<p id="Cz8VaX">This might sound familiar: In 2011, an earlier debt limit crisis led to the Budget Control Act of 2011, which set spending caps for the rest of the decade. In this case, the spending limits apply only for two years.</p>
<p id="JUHYsL">And while this cut is shallower than the automatic cuts of the last decade, it applies to programs that already have been feeling the squeeze: According to <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/congress-should-reject-proposals-to-cut-non-defense-program-funding">the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities</a>, spending for discretionary domestic programs (excluding veterans’ <a href="https://www.vox.com/health-care" data-source="encore">health care</a>) is 10 percent below 2010 levels when adjusted for inflation and increases in the US population.</p>
<p id="0SNDUs">The long-running neglect has led to <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/unmet-needs-and-the-squeeze-on-appropriations">shortages in the services they provide</a>. Child care assistance has fallen for the better part of two decades. The primary grant program served 373,000 more children in 2006, even though now there are an additional 1 million American children living <a href="https://www.vox.com/poverty" data-source="encore">in poverty</a>. Likewise, 3 out of 4 US families that should be eligible for federal housing assistance don’t actually receive any aid because there is no funding available. Cuts to the Social Security Administration have been going on for years, while wait times for assistance have been increasing. Investments in water infrastructure have been stagnant, even after clean water crises in Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi.</p>
<p id="GW6sF6">Cuts were inevitable — even to <a href="https://www.vox.com/social-programs" data-source="encore">social programs</a> that were already underfunded — once Republicans took control of the House and therefore the appropriations process. The question was always how much of the major programs Democrats could protect given Republican threats to hold the debt ceiling hostage. <em>—Dylan Scott</em></p>
<h3 id="mfCXqm">What are the new work requirements, and what are they likely to do?</h3>
<p id="TdrNo9">The debt ceiling deal includes increased work requirements for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly known as food stamps) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, or cash welfare), both of which already include substantial work requirements.</p>
<p id="Z2qyKl">One thing notably missing? Work requirements for Medicaid, which had been a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/5/12/23712447/medicaid-work-requirements-us-debt-ceiling">key demand of House Republicans</a>.</p>
<p id="2IhyFl"><a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/work-requirements">SNAP</a> has a set of general work requirements, and a narrower set of requirements for nondisabled adults without dependents. The changes in the new deal concern the latter. Currently, childless adults between the ages of 18 and 49 who do not have a physical or mental condition affecting their ability to work are generally required to work or volunteer for 80 hours a month. If they fail to, they face a time limit: They can only receive SNAP benefits for a maximum of three months over a three-year period. The debt ceiling deal <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/29/us/politics/debt-limit-deal-food-stamps.html">expands the age range</a> for these rules to apply to 50- to 54-year-olds.</p>
<p id="8oN8XU">While that change may not seem significant, it could have a <a href="https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/new-snap-work-requirements-are-a">major impact on people applying for disability support</a> unable to work. People get sicker in their 50s, and <a href="https://izajolp.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-9004-3-1#Tab4">SNAP has historically been a major source of support</a> for applicants during the long process of applying for disability benefits.</p>
<p id="08PcNi">Offsetting these changes are new exemptions from work requirements for houseless people, veterans, and former foster children. The <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-05/hr3746_Letter_McCarthy.pdf#page=6">Congressional Budget Office estimates</a> that, taken as a whole, the deal’s changes to SNAP will result in 78,000 more people receiving benefits, and add $2.1 billion to the program’s 10-year cost. </p>
<p id="bycO9m">TANF, meanwhile, was created by the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/6/20/11789988/clintons-welfare-reform">1996 welfare reform law</a>, replacing a program that offered guaranteed cash for low-income parents with a block grant giving <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL32760.pdf">$16.5 billion annually</a> to states to spend on anti-poverty programs (though in practice the money is used for <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/9/24/23368759/mississippi-welfare-fraud-scandal-brett-favre-reform">all manner of things</a>). Because its appropriation has never been adjusted for inflation over its 27 years of existence, the program has effectively been cut in half over time, and now <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/temporary-assistance-for-needy-families">only about 21 percent of poor families with children</a> get help from it.</p>
<p id="UPhqMH">States getting money from TANF have to meet a work-participation standard, requiring that 50 percent of families and 90 percent of two-parent families receiving benefits are working. However, these percentages can be reduced if the state has seen its TANF caseload fall over time (or if the state reports spending more of its own funds than is required by federal law), which is known as a <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12150">“caseload reduction credit.”</a> Thirty-two states have used these credits to <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ofa/wpr2021table01a.pdf">reduce the work participation percentage they have to hit on TANF to 0 percent</a>, as of fiscal year 2021.</p>
<p id="L41CVE">Currently, these credits are calculated by seeing how much caseloads have fallen relative to fiscal year 2005, meaning states can get credit for nearly two decades of reductions. The debt ceiling deal <a href="https://twitter.com/meredithllee/status/1662659994414710784">changes this baseline to fiscal year 2015</a>, which is laxer than what Republicans wanted (fiscal year 2022).</p>
<p id="aS8ozY">While in theory this could incentivize states to push TANF recipients toward work, the last time a change like this was tried in 2005, it <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12150#page=3">did not result in a higher share of recipients </a>due to states <a href="https://time.com/6282245/job-requirements-debt-ceiling/">exploiting other loopholes</a>. In other words, while the new policy undoubtedly tries to chip away at the welfare state, its actual impact may be a bit muted. The <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-05/hr3746_Letter_McCarthy.pdf#page=8">CBO estimates</a> the provision will only save $5 million over 10 years, for a 0.003 percent total reduction in TANF spending. <em>—Dylan Matthews</em></p>
<h3 id="Foe6FW">What does the student loan provision mean for borrowers?</h3>
<p id="1685468596.727879">Here’s the bottom line: You’re probably going to need to start paying back your <a href="https://www.vox.com/student-loan-debt">student loans</a> again at the end of this summer. The pause on loan payments, and the hold on interest accruing on that debt, is set to end after August 29, with interest on loans beginning to accrue again on August 30, if the current proposal becomes law. That’s 60 days after June 30 — the same deadline that the president and the Education Department had set for repayments to begin, if the <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus" data-source="encore">Supreme Court</a> had not made a final decision on the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan by then.</p>
<p id="Vpotg8">The Court still hasn’t made a pronouncement on that <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/9/18/23356614/midterms-2022-student-loan-forgiveness-polls-congressional-races">plan</a>, though a decision is expected in June — and it’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/2/13/23587751/supreme-court-student-loan-debt-forgiveness-joe-biden-nebraska-department-education-brown">not likely to be positive</a> for the nearly 43 million Americans who owe some kind of student debt. Should they rule against the plan, the debt ceiling deal would prevent the president from issuing a ninth extension of the payment pause, which began in March 2020. —<em>Christian Paz</em></p>
<h3 id="SP6cnL">What actually changes about energy permitting?</h3>
<p id="XzNK51">The biggest surprise of the deal might be its approval of the 300-mile <a href="https://www.mountainvalleypipeline.info/">Mountain Valley Pipeline</a>, which will carry <a href="https://www.vox.com/fossil-fuels" data-source="encore">natural gas</a> from West Virginia to southern Virginia.</p>
<p id="IAInHc">The pipeline, held up for years by federal lawsuits, has long been a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/9/27/23375059/joe-manchin-permitting-reform-progressives-republicans">top priority</a> for Sen. Joe Manchin. But the pipeline’s role in debt ceiling talks largely flew under the radar. The deal would give a green light to outstanding permits for the pipeline and shields its construction from court intervention, to the frustration of environmentalists worried about the pipeline’s impact on <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28052023/environmentalists-in-virginia-and-west-virginia-regroup-to-stop-the-mountain-valley-pipeline-eyeing-a-white-house-protest/">rural and low-income areas </a>and the 1,000 streams and wetlands along its way.</p>
<p id="kgUVUX">There are a few other modest changes to permitting for energy projects in the deal, mostly affecting the bedrock 1970s-era environmental protection law, the <a href="https://ceq.doe.gov/#:~:text=President%20Nixon%20signed%20the%20National,)%2C%20and%20for%20other%20purposes.">National Environmental Policy Act</a>. It sets a one-year deadline for agencies to complete an environmental assessment, and a two-year deadline for the more thorough environmental impact statement, an expensive review requiring community input. (Progressives argue that, rather than time limits, <a href="https://prospect.org/environment/biggest-permitting-reform-would-be-more-money/">federal agencies need more staffing</a> to complete reviews quickly.)</p>
<p id="0v1EBs">Neither Democrats nor Republicans are going to walk away from the debt ceiling compromise feeling satisfied. House Republicans didn’t get a majority of their demands, such as fast-tracking fossil fuel infrastructure and repealing <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy" data-source="encore">clean energy</a> tax credits in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/8/8/23296951/inflation-reduction-act-biden-democrats-climate-change" data-source="encore">Inflation Reduction Act</a>. Democrats didn’t get any major wins in expanding transmission lines, an <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/09/manchin-permitting-reform-power-lines/671496/">important piece of infrastructure</a> for the clean energy grid. Instead, the deal agrees to a study on transmission, punting the bigger issues holding back transmission lines to another time. —<em>Rebecca Leber</em></p>
<h3 id="R0rRV6">What’s up with unspent Covid aid?</h3>
<p id="4jqMS4">Republicans have been fixated for a while on clawing back money that Congress authorized during the pandemic but that has not yet been spent. They secured a win in the debt limit deal, with the White House agreeing to reclaim some of that funding in the name of reducing spending.</p>
<p id="rXxd6W">The deal exempts some of the remaining Covid funding, including money set aside to fund a next generation of vaccine development as well as funding that pays for Covid vaccines and treatment for uninsured Americans. “It is really important that these were protected,” said Jennifer Kates, director of global health at KFF.</p>
<p id="n9kxXq">Obviously, billions of dollars have been spent over the past three years on assistance to people and businesses, as well as funding for vaccines and other <a href="https://www.vox.com/public-health" data-source="encore">public health</a> efforts. So what’s left? There has not been a thorough public accounting for what money is left for specific projects, according to Kates. But with the pandemic winding down and important funding streams unaffected, public health experts don’t sound too worried about this aspect of the deal. —<em>DS</em></p>
<h3 id="ydGM0m">Are the IRS cuts symbolic or significant?</h3>
<p id="flqzeo">The scope of the IRS funding cuts in the debt ceiling deal was notable: Roughly $20 billion of $80 billion that Congress previously approved will be repurposed for other programs in 2024 and 2025. This will help Democrats offset some of the deal’s cuts to domestic spending.</p>
<p id="olbEKH">White House officials have <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/irs-funding-cut-wont-hurt-near-term-tax-collection-officials-say-2023-05-28/">told Reuters</a> that the short-term impact could actually be minimal, however, since the funding for the agency was approved over 10 years. Effectively, that means that the IRS might not feel these funding cuts in the near term, and that lawmakers could put in more requests for agency funding when needed in the future.</p>
<p id="RmgIS1">Making these cuts, though, allows Republicans to claim a win on the issue: They’ve long targeted the IRS and argued that its resources should be clawed back. <em>—Li Zhou</em></p>
<p id="1685461451.268249"><em><strong>Update, June 1, 11:30 pm:</strong></em><em> This story was originally published on May 30 and has been updated multiple times, most recently with the result of the Senate vote on the debt ceiling deal. </em></p>
<p id="3GzXlY"></p>
https://www.vox.com/policy/23742237/debt-ceiling-deal-explained-student-loans-snap-irsAndrew ProkopDylan ScottDylan MatthewsRebecca LeberChristian PazLi Zhou2023-06-01T23:20:06-04:002023-06-01T23:20:06-04:00If you have student loans, here’s what the debt ceiling deal means for you
<figure>
<img alt="Bernie Sanders in a crowd, one holding a sign that reads “cancel student debt.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/W3nsBOLlFltDYymAq0aUHpeeI8I=/0x0:6607x4955/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72334306/1247558068.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) waits to speak during a rally in support of the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Get ready to pay back your loans — or pressure the White House for new action.</p> <p id="UwtUm3"></p>
<p id="7HvvSR">Included in the bipartisan bill to raise the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/5/9/23715753/debt-ceiling-limit-default-deal-crisis" data-source="encore">debt ceiling</a> that is about to become law (the Senate passed it late Thursday night; it now goes to the president’s desk) is a provision that has raised alarms from advocates for <a href="https://www.vox.com/student-loan-debt" data-source="encore">student loan relief</a>.</p>
<p id="BKF8eD">While the debt ceiling deal<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23742237/debt-ceiling-deal-explained-student-loans-snap-irs"> codifies the White House’s plan to resume loan payments</a> at the end of this summer, it also includes a provision that prevents the executive branch from further extending this pause on payments and interest without congressional approval.</p>
<p id="tCvsP1">Should the <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus" data-source="encore">Supreme Court</a> rule against the <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden" data-source="encore">Biden administration</a>’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt, as it’s expected to do later this month, the White House won’t have any obvious or immediate pathway to create debt relief for the 40 million Americans who would benefit.</p>
<p id="dJZHU8">That doesn’t mean that in a future emergency the White House would be unable to enact a moratorium again — but it does mean that student loan payments are really about to return.</p>
<h3 id="npa7G8">Get ready to start paying back your loans</h3>
<p id="lc2WTz">In effect, by the end of the summer, there is a very real chance that millions of student loans will not be canceled, that you will have to start paying back the loans you owe after more than three years of paused payments, and that debt will start to accrue interest again.</p>
<p id="4zJpNs">And the restart of payments <a href="https://www.vox.com/22839890/student-loan-payments-restart-february">isn’t likely to go off without a hitch</a>. That means the potentially chaotic unpausing will all start to happen right before an election year.</p>
<p id="wNdHps">“It’s worse [than before the pandemic] because people have been counting on relief and other possibilities have been foreclosed,” Astra Taylor, a co-founder of the Debt Collective, a <a href="https://www.vox.com/unions" data-source="encore">union</a> of debtors, told me. “So [this policy] is going to really hurt people who are coming out of this whole crisis worse off than they were in 2019. And now with this blow, the whole promise of relief is ‘Okay, we’re going to try to repair the damage’ and now it’s ‘We’re going to compound the damage.’”</p>
<p id="5na0El">As it stands, the Biden administration does not have any viable paths to provide student debt relief through <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress" data-source="encore">Congress</a> until after the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2024-presidential-election" data-source="encore">2024 presidential election</a>. And the current Congress is actually hostile to any attempts. </p>
<p id="zenxum">A spokesperson for the president said on Thursday that Biden intends to veto the most recent attempt to block any loan relief: a resolution under the Congressional Review Act that would annul the administration’s student loan forgiveness plan and reverse the extension of the student loan pause passed the Senate Thursday with the support of independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana.</p>
<p id="6B0DOe">Through the debt ceiling negotiations, Biden did manage to neutralize the threat House Republicans posed to his student loan forgiveness plan and preserved the power to enact moratoriums in future national emergencies, while codifying the existing plan to restart payments and interest at the end of the summer, Adam Minsky, an attorney who specializes in helping student loan borrowers, told me.</p>
<p id="5borvK">“Between that deal and vetoing the Congressional Review Act resolution, Biden halted the two paths that congressional Republicans were simultaneously using to try to repeal any student loan forgiveness. That resolution would have retroactively undone the extension of the current pause and could have resulted in the credit from forgiven public service loans being reinstated,” Minsky said.</p>
<p id="aTFaDf">But that threat for future action of student debt relief from future Congresses still exists, Taylor said, and heightens the imperative for the executive branch to act where the legislative branch won’t.</p>
<p id="1kmg0H">Taylor, and other advocates for more aggressive executive action, argue that there are other options for the White House to pursue additional debt relief, using the Higher Education Act, which grants the Education Department power to manage and govern the modern college funding system and “compromise, waive, or release” federal loans. They note that forgiveness is a standard part of programs that allow students to repay loans based on income, which are supposed to forgive the remaining loan balance after enough time has passed.</p>
<p id="s7fPlw">“Student debt cancellation by the Department of Education is actually hardly radical. It does happen all the time” Taylor said. Advocates hold that those various Plan Bs still exist — and that time is of the essence for the Biden administration to prepare those options. </p>
https://www.vox.com/23746006/debt-ceiling-deal-student-loansChristian Paz2023-06-01T22:55:10-04:002023-06-01T22:55:10-04:005 winners and 5 losers from the debt ceiling deal
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QKPw_F9l9xFF5A_Q6BgRHGj0sWA=/0x0:2319x1739/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72334243/GettyImages_1248463117__1_.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) talk as they depart the Capitol following the Friends of Ireland Luncheon on Saint Patrick’s Day March 17, 2023 in Washington, DC. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Biden and McCarthy win. The Freedom Caucus loses. </p> <p id="peadjN">The <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/5/9/23715753/debt-ceiling-limit-default-deal-crisis" data-source="encore">debt ceiling</a> battle of 2023 was full of sound and fury, and signified ... well, not nothing, exactly, but not very much.</p>
<p id="zg1sTb">Despite heated rhetoric over hostage-taking and talk of default, <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden" data-source="encore">President Joe Biden</a> and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy arrived at a relatively normal budget deal reached with the help of an imminent deadline.</p>
<p id="LfqP1V">The deal passed the House in an overwhelming bipartisan vote Wednesday night, and the Senate by a vote of 63 to 36 Thursday night.</p>
<p id="JBqaoA">Neither party got everything it wanted. Domestic spending will effectively be held at something close to the status quo in nominal terms, which means a cut when accounting for inflation. It’s still at a much higher level than Republicans wanted, and lower than Democrats would have preferred (though they do not see the cuts as devastating).</p>
<p id="WuQeWe">On a set of other policy issues where Republicans <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/4/19/23690167/debt-ceiling-bill-house-republicans">made big demands</a>, Democrats granted only some limited concessions — for instance, on work requirements for some food stamp recipients, and on agreeing to restart <a href="https://www.vox.com/student-loan-debt" data-source="encore">student loan</a> repayments in August, the latter of which the Biden administration had already said they’d do.</p>
<p id="gXIlDn">The biggest political losers from this anticlimactic outcome of bipartisan feel-goodery include those whose theories of congressional politics tend toward the confrontational — both the conservatives hoping to use a crisis to force drastic policy changes, and liberals who hoped Biden would take bold executive action to effectively solve the debt ceiling issue. Yet those who actually wanted major policy changes to shrink the federal deficit and reduce the growth of the national debt should also be discomfited at this deal, which shows that the budget status quo remains popular in Washington.</p>
<h3 id="TXCWB5">Winner: Joe Biden</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" President Joe Biden" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/h7WZ3iDCmB5Tyj0hHmNnZUg3RGY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24696927/GettyImages_1494920209.jpg">
<cite>Win McNamee/Getty</cite>
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<p id="iBsFAf">Biden’s handling of the debt ceiling issue has been repeatedly <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/22/23732761/debt-ceiling-limit-biden-mccarthy-negotiations">second-guessed</a> in recent weeks. Initially, he claimed he wouldn’t negotiate on the topic at all, but he also essentially ruled out using his own executive authority to avert a default — hoping Republicans would simply cave. </p>
<p id="WCFMsY">But as the crisis date drew nearer with no sign of a GOP cave, Biden had the good sense to realize his initial plan wasn’t working. Furthermore, he knew there was no scenario in which he would have avoided negotiating with Republicans on this year’s spending levels — eventually, the House needed to pass bills funding the government. </p>
<p id="PEekVi">Biden would have preferred to have those talks without the debt ceiling hanging over his head. But he eventually climbed down and agreed to talk to the GOP, hoping a reasonable deal could be struck.</p>
<p id="iMuzgG">And at the end of the day, that’s what he ended up with. Biden did not defeat Republicans, nor was he strong-armed by them into making horrendous concessions. Rather, the two sides compromised. Biden averted an economic crisis without making extraordinary policy changes, and took the debt ceiling issue off the table until after the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2024-presidential-election" data-source="encore">2024 election</a> — overall, a pretty good outcome for the sitting president.</p>
<h3 id="9rjpoT">Loser: Liberal commentators who wanted a partisan showdown to end debt ceiling hostage-taking </h3>
<p id="bJKX7o">Some Democrats have long resented how the 2011 debt ceiling crisis played out. In that episode, President Obama agreed to deep spending cuts to avert House Republicans’ threat of a debt default — an outcome that they viewed as basically rewarding terrorist tactics. The experience led many to hold the view that should another such crisis come around for a Democratic president, they <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/05/debt-ceiling-deal-who-won-biden-mccarthy-republicans-hostage-extortion.html">should</a> <a href="https://us19.campaign-archive.com/?u=8855a23519ab892dfe2cd34f6&id=4b7f304f34">hold firm</a> and refuse to negotiate. </p>
<p id="2U6PMA">Meanwhile, some wonks, academics, and commentators proposed various clever-sounding workarounds through which, they argue, the administration could effectively defuse the debt ceiling bomb without <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress" data-source="encore">Congress</a> at all. Perhaps the administration could <a href="https://dlj.law.duke.edu/article/the-debt-limit-and-the-constitution-how-the-fourteenth-amendment-forbids-fiscal-obstructionism/">cite the 14th Amendment</a> in arguing the debt ceiling is unconstitutional, or they could <a href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/3228/">issue a novel sort of debt</a>, or they could mint a platinum coin <a href="https://www.vox.com/22711346/trillion-dollar-coin-mintthecoin-debt-ceiling-beowulf">worth $1 trillion</a>.</p>
<p id="GpLPR9">This year’s crisis had the potential to be the big moment for one of these ideas. But the problem was that the Biden administration never believed any of those weird tricks could truly be relied on to avert an economic crisis rather than causing it. They saw legal, practical, and political problems with all of these options. And once they were ruled out, he didn’t really have any better way out of the crisis than negotiating. </p>
<p id="PW1YZE">Which worked out just fine, it turned out. The fact that House Republicans agreed to a relatively reasonable deal rather than insisting on extreme concessions undercuts these commentators’ analysis that a highly risky game of chicken or executive authority option was even necessary here. If Biden followed their advice, the outcome — for the nation’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy" data-source="encore">economy</a>, and his presidency — could well have been much messier.</p>
<h3 id="JMGx05">Winner: Kevin McCarthy</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vtR3YluVT3brfeJ_A4U5x0vSmDI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24696936/GettyImages_1454025974.jpg">
<cite>Win McNamee/Getty</cite>
</figure>
<p id="x6ZkEv">When McCarthy was set to take over the speakership, many in Washington openly questioned whether he had the chops for the job, with some openly calling him “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/03/kevin-mccarthy-washington-media-taboo-intelligence-00036894">dumb</a>.” His struggles at locking down the Republican votes to even become speaker also <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/4/23537063/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-debt-ceiling-congress-118">seemed to portend</a> an ineffective tenure.</p>
<p id="9Nu3O9">Yet all in all, McCarthy’s handling of the debt ceiling issue was pretty impressive. Initially, he kept the party together, passed a <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/4/19/23690167/debt-ceiling-bill-house-republicans">GOP-only proposal</a> through the House, and tried to drive a tough bargain with Biden. Rather than fragmented and chaotic, his conference was unified in maintaining they would not accept a clean debt ceiling increase, and that Biden must negotiate with them.</p>
<p id="d7md6M">Then, when the time came, he was willing to reach a pragmatic deal that the hard right of his party would hate but that would win support from a majority of House Republicans. He proved that, in fact, the far-right House Freedom Caucus does not control his speakership. And he even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/31/gop-presidential-candidates-debt-deal/">kept Trump’s opposition</a> relatively muted, in part by being sure to keep him informed about developments <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/25/us/politics/republicans-debt-limit-talks-biden.html">through frequent phone calls</a>.</p>
<h3 id="6QKSnI">Loser: The House Freedom Caucus</h3>
<p id="pJlzG7">The ideologically extreme, confrontational House Freedom Caucus (HFC) has bedeviled Republican speakers going back to John Boehner in 2015 — their truculence helped lead to his decision to resign that year. </p>
<p id="JsGEmZ">And the odd dynamics of the speaker election, in which McCarthy needed to lock down 218 votes among his 222 Republicans to get the job, made it seem to some as if the HFC would effectively be running the show this Congress. McCarthy had even granted them key spots on the Rules Committee, and changed the rules so that any one member of Congress can effectively force a grueling new speaker election via the “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9067401/john-boehner-coup-explained">motion to vacate the chair,”</a> which many feared would be a sword of Damocles hanging over his head for the rest of his speakership.</p>
<p id="ubXMls">McCarthy played nice with the Freedom Caucus throughout the negotiating process, but when the time came, he made his deal without being scared of a far-right coup. Indeed, HFC members squawked and complained on <a href="https://www.vox.com/media" data-source="encore">Fox News</a>, but they seemed reluctant to go so far as trying to push McCarthy out. </p>
<p id="L8Lozd">When reluctant Freedom Caucus members withheld their floor votes for the rule that would allow the deal to come to a full House vote, Democrats ended up bailing McCarthy out. An <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/06/01/jeffries-mccarthy-debt-ceiling-bill-deal">Axios report</a> claimed Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had made a secret deal with McCarthy in exchange for more earmark money for Democratic districts, though McCarthy’s and Jeffries’s offices heatedly denied any such deal. </p>
<p id="66AN7m">Regardless, the implication is clear: The Freedom Caucus’s recalcitrance risks pushing policy further <em>to the left</em>. If they care about policy rather than simply maintaining an oppositional posture, they’d be wise to reflect on that. (But it’s not clear that’s what they do care about.)</p>
<h3 id="jhAFKp">Winner: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security beneficiaries </h3>
<div class="c-float-left"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A poster that says “A monthly check to you — for the rest of your life — beginning when you are 65.”" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/C3A9Tx5GiEcgC1TI3-J6lDJO-Dk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24696945/Screen_Shot_2023_06_01_at_3.01.19_PM.png">
<cite>GraphicaArtis/Getty</cite>
<figcaption>A 1935 poster introducing the Social Security program for the elderly</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p id="O3tAr3">The debt ceiling deal cements the bipartisan consensus that Medicare and Social Security should not be touched to reduce the deficit. This is a major shift in the GOP, which tried to privatize Social Security under George W. Bush in 2005 and backed Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare in 2011. </p>
<p id="dofShu">But Donald Trump’s opposition to such cuts (as well as the GOP’s increased reliance on older voters and less wealthy white voters) took changes to those programs off the table. </p>
<p id="EhGWws">There was some speculation that Republicans could return to such ideas as part of debt ceiling talks — yet, as seen during <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/2/7/23590214/takeaways-biden-state-of-union-2023-key-moments">a live back-and-forth</a> with Biden on the topic during his State of the Union address in February, their ardor for entitlement reform affecting seniors has waned. The resulting debt ceiling deal only affirmed that. </p>
<p id="zvcUTu">The GOP did <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/5/12/23712447/medicaid-work-requirements-us-debt-ceiling">propose effective major cuts to Medicaid</a>, by way of work requirements for beneficiaries. But Democrats held strong against that idea and the GOP gave in, dropping it from their demands. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are safe (for now)<strong>. </strong></p>
<h3 id="n97yYw">Loser: Non-working food stamp recipients aged 50 to 54 </h3>
<p id="UvDr9d">The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — popularly known as <a href="https://www.vox.com/social-programs" data-source="encore">food stamps</a> — was a target of Republicans during negotiations. But the actual outcome was a little more nuanced.</p>
<p id="sFpknW">One significant concession Biden did make to Republicans involved <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/29/us/politics/debt-limit-deal-food-stamps.html">work requirements for food stamp beneficiaries</a>. These requirements already existed for recipients aged 18 to 49, but the deal expands them to recipients aged 50 to 54 (those with physical or mental disabilities affecting their ability to work are exempted). Progressives typically dislike work requirements and <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/4/29/23701153/medicaid-work-requirements-republicans-food-stamps-cash-welfare">question </a>whether they in fact successfully incentivize more people to get jobs, or whether they’re simply another administrative and paperwork burden that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/work-requirements-snap-debt-ceiling/674246/">ends up depriving</a> deserving people of benefits.</p>
<p id="onZD62">Now, Biden did win a significant concession in return — food stamp recipients of any age who are homeless or veterans will be exempted from preexisting or new work requirements, as will young adults who recently exited foster care. </p>
<p id="uJXc2r">A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the bill <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/debt-ceiling-deal-increase-snap-food-stamp-eligibility/story?id=99728075">estimated</a> that the net effect of the food stamp provisions would be to increase the number of beneficiaries. But other analysts <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/29/us/politics/debt-limit-deal-food-stamps.html">question</a> whether that will happen in practice given the difficulty of getting homeless people signed up for benefits. </p>
<h3 id="i73wrw">Loser: Student loan borrowers hoping payments wouldn’t restart</h3>
<p id="Y1pjCk">In March 2020, as the Covid-19 crisis was breaking out, the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/2023/04/13/student-loan-pause-has-benefitted-affluent-borrowers-the-most-others-may-struggle-when-payments-resume/">Trump administration paused</a> payments and interest accumulation on most federal student loans. The Biden administration has repeatedly extended those pauses even as the nation has returned to normal — in part, because student debt forgiveness has become an important policy demand from progressives. </p>
<p id="fIZiCn">But the debt ceiling deal says that loan recipients will need to begin payments and interest accumulation will start again by the end of August. The Biden administration had already said they planned on restarting payments then, but given that they’d extended the payment pause so many times in the past, Republicans doubted whether they’d follow through. But, if signed into law, the deal guarantees that those payments would indeed have to restart.</p>
<p id="GhHJrD">As for Biden’s larger student debt forgiveness plan — which <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/8/24/23319967/student-loan-payments-debt-forgiveness-biden">promised to cancel</a> up to $20,000 in debt for low-income students and $10,000 for many others — its fate still <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/2/13/23587751/supreme-court-student-loan-debt-forgiveness-joe-biden-nebraska-department-education-brown">hinges on the Supreme Court</a>, with a decision expected to come down this month.</p>
<h3 id="n9DQWD">Winner: Joe Manchin</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/t1p31RvJTJrTbXhdvD33ewl0Whs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24696666/GettyImages_1466504204.jpg">
<cite>Kevin Dietsch/Getty</cite>
</figure>
<p id="T3QWME">As the crucial 50th vote in Democrats’ Senate majority last session, Sen. <a href="https://www.vox.com/22339531/manchin-filibuster-bipartisanship-senate-west-virginia">Joe Manchin</a> (D-WV) aggressively used his leverage to <a href="https://www.vox.com/23281547/build-back-better-joe-manchin-inflation-reduction-act">reshape the party’s policy agenda</a>. But he had some unfinished business. </p>
<p id="Xi00ji">Last year, he sought to overhaul federal permitting for energy projects, and he wanted Congress to <a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/09/26/manchin-push-on-pipeline-approval-recalls-1970s-dam-project/">jump-start</a> one specific <a href="https://www.vox.com/fossil-fuels" data-source="encore">natural gas</a> project currently stalled by permitting woes — the Mountain Valley Pipeline. </p>
<p id="raVwcs">Now, some Democrats had also hoped for a deal that would ease permitting requirements for clean-energy projects as well, to help the fight against <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate" data-source="encore">climate change</a>. But talks on those issues fell apart last year, in part because progressives objected for environmental reasons, in part because Republicans were just reluctant to hand Manchin a win.</p>
<p id="bJ6wEm">Yet lo and behold, when the debt ceiling deal was released, it included the approval of Manchin’s pipeline as a treat. The Biden administration <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/climate/biden-mountain-valley-pipeline.html">had granted an important permit </a>for the pipeline two weeks prior, but the deal orders expedited approval of other permits and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/31/1179201992/mountain-valley-pipeline-west-virginia-debt-ceiling-deal">effectively protects</a> the pipeline from lawsuits. The deal also <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23742237/debt-ceiling-deal-explained-student-loans-snap-irs">included some limited changes</a> on permitting reform, particularly to the National Environmental Policy Act, that had been sought by Manchin and Republicans. </p>
<p id="nSDERt">The problem is that now that Manchin and the GOP have gotten some of what they wanted, it<strong> </strong>could reduce the urgency for broader permitting reform sought by <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy" data-source="encore">clean energy</a> backers, as <a href="https://heatmap.news/politics/the-real-climate-defeat-in-the-debt-ceiling-deal">Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer writes</a>. But Manchin has, once again, gotten his way. </p>
<h3 id="DJIDEG">Loser: Serious deficit hawks</h3>
<p id="fN4aXu">In theory, this debt ceiling battle was about Republicans’ desire to reduce the long-run federal budget deficit. In practice, it was nothing of the kind. </p>
<p id="lvgbc7">The key cost drivers of the federal budget — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense spending — were left untouched (or, in the case of defense spending,<a href="https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2023/05/29/debt-ceiling-agreement-locks-in-bidens-proposed-defense-budget/#:~:text=WASHINGTON%20%E2%80%94%20The%20debt%20ceiling%20agreement,defense%20spending%20to%20%24704%20billion."> increased</a>). The GOP remains uniformly opposed to tax increases, which also weren’t included. And Republicans didn’t want to cut spending on veterans either.</p>
<p id="aeLyxK">So negotiations largely focused on what should happen to the single category of “non-defense, non-veterans discretionary” spending. But for cuts to that category to make a sizable real long-run impact, they’d have to be gargantuan. Democrats would obviously not go for that, and even most Republicans don’t actually seem to have wanted much bigger cuts (the party wants to be <em>seen</em> as cutting spending but is far less united on what specifically they’d want to cut).</p>
<p id="4cfgLD">Washington’s deficit hawks are nonetheless <a href="https://twitter.com/MarcGoldwein/status/1663960282014646272">declaring victory</a>, as any spending cuts do move things in the right direction from their perspective. That’s fair enough. But in a sense, the outcome of these talks reveal just how little political consensus there still is around their project. </p>
<h3 id="hc3hxs">Winner: The debt ceiling</h3>
<p id="mOpati">The debt ceiling is terrible policy — governance by game of chicken with the risk of national default is an awful way to run a country. </p>
<p id="csltPL">And yet it’s probably here to stay.</p>
<p id="gqrKVX">Republicans obviously will want to keep it around, since they successfully used it to win at least some concessions from Biden. While there’s lately been some regret from Democrats that they didn’t abolish the debt ceiling while they had the chance — though in reality they never actually had the chance, since Manchin <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/16/lame-duck-debt-ceiling-deal-00067123">would</a> <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/01/18/manchin-floats-fiscal-commissions-for-debt-limit-bill/">have opposed</a> doing so — the relatively quiet outcome from this go-round will probably reduce that urgency.</p>
<p id="bvHLuR">Next time Republicans control Washington, Democrats will again see the usefulness of the debt ceiling in spurring dealmaking, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/us/politics/chuck-schumer-new-washington.html">Chuck Schumer did in 2017</a> under President Trump. Next time Democrats have unified control of Washington, they’ll still have moderates who fear that a vote to ditch the debt ceiling will be a campaign liability.</p>
<p id="SfeZ95">To actually get rid of the debt ceiling, we’d probably need a crisis that’s much worse than this year’s actually turned out to be. In the absence of such a crisis, politicians will view it as an annoying thing they both have to deal with and can deal with. They did so again this time — and so they kick the can down the road for the next administration.</p>
<p id="juv5pM"></p>
https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/6/1/23743797/debt-ceiling-biden-mccarthy-winners-losersAndrew Prokop2023-05-31T21:32:12-04:002023-05-31T21:32:12-04:00The House manages to get it together on the debt ceiling
<figure>
<img alt="A crowd of people in suits and ties surround Kevin McCarthy, pointing microphones at him and taking videos with their cellphones." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8xqEzZrLSzynz7BQ9aXS6eDdDW0=/11x0:4146x3101/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72330250/1494911239.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>House Speaker Kevin McCarthy talks to reporters as he walks to his office at the Capitol on May 31, 2023, in Washington, DC. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With just days to spare, the House has approved a debt ceiling bill that’s poised to avert a financial crisis.</p> <p id="AYyLJa"><a href="https://www.vox.com/congress" data-source="encore">Congress</a> got one major step closer to averting a default on Wednesday after the House approved <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/5/9/23715753/debt-ceiling-limit-default-deal-crisis" data-source="encore">debt ceiling</a> legislation 314-117, with a sizable number of both Republicans and Democrats supporting the bill. Ultimately, 149 Republicans and 165 Democrats voted for the bill.</p>
<p id="NW0u6G">The House vote was expected to be the more contentious of the two chambers, and the bill now heads to the Senate, where it’s set to have a relatively smooth path to passage. The House vote on the deal is significant given reports that upward of 20 Republicans intended to vote against the bill, and worries that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would be short the support necessary for it to pass. In the end, a number of conservative Republicans as well as progressive Democrats opposed the bill, while a bulk of moderates in both parties backed it. </p>
<p id="WW8qFy">The final legislation is a compromise between <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden" data-source="encore">President Joe Biden</a> and McCarthy, and will suspend the debt limit until January 2025, ensuring that the issue won’t be a point of contention until after the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2024-presidential-election" data-source="encore">2024 presidential election</a>. It also contains two years of spending caps, an expansion in work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (a.k.a. <a href="https://www.vox.com/social-programs" data-source="encore">food stamps</a>), and an end to a pause in federal <a href="https://www.vox.com/student-loan-debt" data-source="encore">student loan</a> payments that’s been in place since 2020. </p>
<p id="ld8Yby">Multiple conservatives had railed against the bill over the last few days because they felt McCarthy hadn’t secured aggressive enough spending cuts or concessions in exchange for the suspension of the debt ceiling. Conversely, progressives felt like Biden shouldn’t have engaged in negotiations to begin with, and felt he gave away too much on work requirements. </p>
<p id="9NrSEU">With just days to go until June 5, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen projected that the US could run out of money to pay all of its bills, Congress seems like it’s managed to pull an agreement through in time to avoid an economic calamity. </p>
<h3 id="Ms59JU">What’s in the debt ceiling deal</h3>
<p id="F6k8B9">Both parties have sought to sell the debt ceiling deal as a win for their respective interests, with the White House emphasizing that the cuts are far lower than those the GOP initially demanded, and Republicans stressing that they used their leverage to force the White House to the table. </p>
<p id="ubFQlN">Below is a brief rundown of some key provisions in the deal:</p>
<ul>
<li id="fsxw1l">A suspension of the debt ceiling until January 2025</li>
<li id="H0Xh1I">A cap on non-defense spending in fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2022 levels, and a 1 percent increase in fiscal year 2025</li>
<li id="3EQY0r">An expansion to work requirements for food stamps that raises the age for these requirements from 49 to 54</li>
<li id="ez2DoD">Stricter work requirements for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program</li>
<li id="w0FIF1">The resumption of student loan payments at the end of summer 2023, following a multiyear pause</li>
<li id="VVZVtw">The repurposing of $20 billion in IRS funds to other domestic spending</li>
<li id="9MLNtR">The clawback of roughly $28 billion in unspent Covid-19 funds </li>
<li id="Yvj56u">Expedited approval for the controversial Mountain Valley <a href="https://www.vox.com/fossil-fuels" data-source="encore">natural gas</a> pipeline in West Virginia and Virginia</li>
</ul>
<p id="9b3w67"></p>
https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/31/23744457/us-debt-ceiling-vote-deal-2023Li Zhou2023-05-30T13:30:00-04:002023-05-30T13:30:00-04:00The Republican revolt over the debt limit deal, explained
<figure>
<img alt="Kevin McCarthy standing at a lectern and speaking." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7inA_vbenYvJpWFu5D4s_WduSuk=/0x0:4457x3343/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72324949/1209070199.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks during his weekly news conference at the US Capitol on February 27, 2020, in Washington, DC. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There’s a deal to avoid a catastrophic default on the US debt. But will House Republicans go for it?</p> <p id="3VubNS">A Wednesday vote <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/28/23734460/debt-ceiling-deal-crisis-default-biden-mccarthy">on a bill to suspend the debt ceiling</a> could ultimately reveal just how strong a hold <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/4/23537063/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-debt-ceiling-congress-118">House Speaker Kevin McCarthy</a> has on his conference, after a compromise on the legislation has prompted conservative backlash. The vote is set to be a major test of McCarthy’s leadership and his ability to sell the agreement to more conservative members of his party, several of whom have already registered concerns about the bill. </p>
<p id="5HkGcr">This past weekend, McCarthy and <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden" data-source="encore">President Joe Biden</a> announced a deal to suspend the debt ceiling until 2025, and cap nondefense spending for two years. The agreement also expands the age range of those required to work to receive <a href="https://www.vox.com/social-programs" data-source="encore">food stamps</a>, and would restart <a href="https://www.vox.com/student-loan-debt" data-source="encore">student loan</a> payments at the end of this summer, which have been suspended since March 2020. This compromise has very swiftly gotten blowback from conservative Republicans, who wanted deeper cuts to social spending, and progressive Democrats, who raised concerns about changes to work requirements. </p>
<p id="4MQK67">“We should kill this,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), a vocal opponent of the agreement said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/RepChipRoy/status/1663388502526943232">Fox News appearance</a> on Monday, noting that Republicans didn’t get enough in exchange for suspending the debt ceiling.</p>
<p id="m9qzOZ">The scramble to pass the legislation in <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress" data-source="encore">Congress</a> comes as lawmakers stare down a rapidly approaching default deadline on Monday, June 5, when the country may be unable to pay all of its bills. </p>
<aside id="Qeovcc"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Biden and McCarthy’s budget deal to lift the debt ceiling, explained","url":"https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/28/23734460/debt-ceiling-deal-crisis-default-biden-mccarthy"}]}'></div></aside><p id="VNTuo8">A simple majority of 218 votes will be needed to pass debt ceiling legislation in the House. Because House Republicans have such a narrow 222-person majority — Democrats control 213 seats — they’ll likely need Democrats’ help to get this bill across the finish line. Members from both parties are expected to defect, so Republicans are unlikely to be able to pass this on their own despite having House control.<strong> </strong></p>
<p id="EVahTx">Looming over the vote is also an unspoken threat against McCarthy’s leadership, which, according to House rules, can be challenged if just one member wants to do so. A majority of the House, however, would have to vote to remove him as Speaker, and it’s unclear whether there are enough votes from either party to achieve that.</p>
<p id="xFb07H">The Wednesday vote, as well as another key procedural hurdle the bill needs to clear, will be indicative of how strong McCarthy’s relationships are with the different flanks of the GOP. “Over 95 percent were overwhelmingly excited about what they see,” <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mccarthy-takes-victory-lap-debt-limit-bill-details-remain-scarce-among-house-members">McCarthy claimed in a <em>Fox News Sunday</em></a> appearance about his members’ reaction to the bill. </p>
<h3 id="gj49Wc">Why Republicans are fighting about the bill</h3>
<p id="AXD7YI">House Republicans’ central disagreement is whether the cuts that McCarthy got out of negotiations were substantial enough to trade for suspending the debt ceiling. The agreement wound up capping nondefense spending for fiscal year 2024 and would allow a 1 percent spending increase for fiscal year 2025. In House Republicans’ debt ceiling bill — known as the Limit, Save and Grow Act — spending caps would have been put in place through 2033. Additionally, House Republicans’ bill had more aggressive work requirements for SNAP and Medicaid.</p>
<p id="7IXWZ4">“The concessions made by the Speaker in his negotiations with President Biden fall far short of my expectations,” Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), <a href="https://twitter.com/WesleyHuntTX/status/1663514529903304706">a Republican who opposes the deal,</a> wrote on Twitter. Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are among those who are expected to line up against the agreement. </p>
<aside id="mXlVMP"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"A debt ceiling breach would be bad bad bad bad bad","url":"https://www.vox.com/money/2023/5/24/23736112/debt-ceiling-economy-default-treasury-janet-yellen-stock-market"}]}'></div></aside><p id="NPk7cd">Ahead of a final vote on Wednesday, a Rules Committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon could also foreshadow how dramatic Republican in-fighting over the debt ceiling might get, and how much conservatives want to go up against McCarthy to make a point. The Rules panel, which includes nine Republicans and four Democrats, will have to vote to approve the bill before it heads to the floor for a vote. </p>
<p id="PgwuwV">Roy, as well as Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), another Rules Committee member, have said they oppose the legislation, but it’s uncertain whether other Republicans on the panel will do the same. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), in particular, is expected to be a key swing vote. Roy has suggested that McCarthy previously agreed that a measure would need the support of all <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/29/politics/chip-roy-house-rules-committee/index.html">nine Republicans in the Rules Committee to proceed to a vote,</a> a claim the Speaker’s allies have questioned. </p>
<p id="9QyqKg">Theoretically, if seven Republicans, or a combination of Republicans and Democrats on the Rules Committee, supported the debt ceiling legislation, it would still have the number of votes typically needed to advance to the floor. The outcome of the Committee vote could signal how aggressive Republican opposition is to the bill. </p>
<p id="JJcwlu">Following the Committee vote, the debt ceiling legislation will need a simple majority to clear the House and 60 votes in the Senate in order to clear the filibuster threshold.</p>
https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/30/23742472/debt-ceiling-deal-agreement-biden-mccarthy-republicans-snap-student-loansLi Zhou2023-05-28T10:42:49-04:002023-05-28T10:42:49-04:00Biden and McCarthy’s budget deal to lift the debt ceiling, explained
<figure>
<img alt="Biden and McCarthy, both smiling and besuited, shake hands in a wood paneled room as a crowd applauds." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WtzI5YqcOpDLz1dVZT0yJ_IH3zo=/385x0:3458x2305/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72320287/GettyImages_1248466992.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy shake hands. | Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The drama isn’t over yet. To end the threat of the default, the bill needs to make it through Congress.</p> <p id="d3Lt04"></p>
<p id="bXGKoL">With a potential default date just days away, lawmakers have managed to avert economic calamity by coming to a deal in principle to raise the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/5/9/23715753/debt-ceiling-limit-default-deal-crisis" data-source="encore">debt ceiling</a> and cap government spending for two years. </p>
<p id="k1zgAz">While the full details of the bill have not yet emerged, the reported elements of the deal included concessions from both parties, effectively ensuring that lawmakers won’t have to revisit the debt ceiling until after the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2024-presidential-election" data-source="encore">2024 presidential election</a>. </p>
<p id="xXakeF">Any deal will still have to pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and will need to gain 60 votes in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Some conservative House Republicans have already objected to the bill. On <a href="https://twitter.com/chiproytx/status/1662649930878427136">Twitter Saturday night</a>, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) wrote, “I do not like the ‘deal’ as I understand it from the cheerleading so far… I will have more to follow once I see more details.”</p>
<p id="6mWJmJ">In the end, <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden" data-source="encore">President Joe Biden</a>, though he long said he would not negotiate on government spending alongside the debt ceiling, wound up doing just that. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/us/politics/debt-ceiling-deal.html">the New York Times</a>, he reportedly agreed to both short-term discretionary spending caps and new limits and work requirements for <a href="https://www.vox.com/social-programs" data-source="encore">social programs</a> like food stamps and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs. House Republicans, meanwhile, relented on several demands to roll back Democratic <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy" data-source="encore">policies</a> including changes to Medicaid. </p>
<p id="ZynDIn">The announcement of a deal defuses longstanding fears about a <a href="https://www.vox.com/money/2023/5/24/23736112/debt-ceiling-economy-default-treasury-janet-yellen-stock-market">potential default</a>, which could have led to significant market volatility, spikes in interest rates, and an increase in unemployment. It indicates, too, that the debt ceiling remains a useful bargaining chip for the minority party, adding to years of brinksmanship on this issue, especially by Republicans. </p>
<h3 id="Xvlzuu"></h3>
<p id="X7qFEm"></p>
<p id="tNcSj5"><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/11/16/23433281/congress-debt-ceiling-house-midterms-spending-cuts-lame-duck-session"></a></p>
<p id="S4uyZu"><s></s><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/20/the-sequester-absolutely-everything-you-could-possibly-need-to-know-in-one-faq/"><s></s></a><s></s><a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/updated-summarizing-ryan-murray-deal"><s></s></a><s></s><a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/budget-deal-truly-offsets-only-half-its-cost"><s></s></a><s></s><a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/bipartisan-budget-act-means-return-trillion-dollar-deficits"><s></s></a><s></s><a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/policymakers-added-22-trillion-debt-2019"><s></s></a><s></s><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/11/16/23433281/congress-debt-ceiling-house-midterms-spending-cuts-lame-duck-session"><s></s></a><s></s></p>
<p id="ONSkvs"><s></s><s></s></p>
<p id="uKFP1E"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/6/20/11789988/clintons-welfare-reform"></a></p>
<p id="WnQgDa"><a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/temporary-assistance-for-needy-families"></a><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/9/24/23368759/mississippi-welfare-fraud-scandal-brett-favre-reform"></a></p>
<p id="nL2sqL"><s></s></p>
<p id="U37A66"><a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/work-requirements"></a><a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/ABAWD/waivers"></a></p>
<p id="QAB2Ke"><s></s><s></s></p>
<p id="HfzqY6">The agreement also reportedly includes new rules around permitting and reviews for the construction of energy projects.</p>
<h3 id="otzzHc">The debt ceiling has become a blunt political weapon</h3>
<p id="fwsOrV">The standoff that led to this deal is only the latest brinksmanship over the debt ceiling. Because it is must-pass legislation, the debt ceiling has been used by both political parties as leverage for policy demands or as a messaging tool. In the last few decades, however, Republicans have become more aggressive in how close they’ve been willing to push the US toward a default to secure policy wins. </p>
<p id="OsGvL6">In 2011, the country came within 72 hours of defaulting as congressional leaders worked to ink a deal that included a debt ceiling increase paired with spending caps. This year, a similar scenario played out yet again as Republicans refused to approve a standalone debt increase. </p>
<p id="pL7kYn"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/2/1/23581229/debt-ceiling-crisis-2011">As one former Republican staffer previously told Vox</a>, many in the GOP saw the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations as successful and as one of the few opportunities the party had to push the spending cuts in a time of divided government. </p>
<p id="YjGEDJ">“I think one of the takeaways was that running this play worked, you know, we were able to actually achieve something and use this moment for leverage,” said Brendan Buck, a staffer to House Speaker John Boehner in 2011. </p>
<p id="TyAJ94">This year’s outcome seems to reaffirm that approach. Although Republicans were forced to make their own serious concessions as part of the discussions, they did secure some key wins that further curb access to social programs, and that roll back investments in non-defense spending. </p>
<p id="XBCf1q">That said, the question remains whether McCarthy will be able to cobble together a majority of his caucus to support the deal. </p>
<p id="SeByc9">The outcome of this year’s negotiations sends a message that the debt ceiling will likely continue to be used as leverage by both parties, and has reignited lawmaker conversations about proposals to change it or get rid of it altogether. (Vox has covered those proposals <a href="https://www.vox.com/22272379/abolish-debt-ceiling">here</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/9/16112364/debt-ceiling-explained">here</a>.) Both parties’ concerns about concessions were ultimately outweighed, however, by the fear of a default and the potential of a catastrophic economic crisis. If the agreement passes, it will put the debt ceiling threat out of reach till after the next election. </p>
https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/28/23734460/debt-ceiling-deal-crisis-default-biden-mccarthyLi ZhouDylan Matthews2023-05-28T06:00:00-04:002023-05-28T06:00:00-04:00Why don’t more voters care about the debt ceiling?
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<figcaption>House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) talks to reporters outside his office at the Capitol following a meeting with President Joe Biden on May 22, 2023 in Washington, DC. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Even with a possible debt ceiling deal, the US has come perilously close to a default. No one seems to care. </p> <p id="FBXyfK">Though there are reports that an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/us/politics/debt-limit-deal.html">agreement is near</a>, a lot <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/5/6/23707949/debt-ceiling-crisis-budget-deal-questions">could go wrong</a> if congressional Republicans and the White House are unable to work out a deal to raise the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/5/9/23715753/debt-ceiling-limit-default-deal-crisis" data-source="encore">debt ceiling</a> by late next week. At some point in the next few weeks, checks from the federal government would stop going out since the country wouldn’t be able to pay its bills. Interest rates would rise, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/stock-market" data-source="encore">stock market</a> would fall, and the country would likely enter a recession potentially resulting in millions of job losses.</p>
<p id="vZNA33">But do most Americans know this? And who would they blame for the economic calamity that would ensue?</p>
<p id="pFPi8E">The answer to the first question is easy: Most Americans don’t seem to view the debt ceiling threat as that big of a deal, or they don’t seem to view a potential default on debt as a crisis. The second question is more complicated and will depend on just how badly the <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy" data-source="encore">economy</a> craters if a deal isn’t reached in the next week.</p>
<p id="z4hSKz">The chaos could start as early as June: A little more than a week remains until we hit the June 5 “X-date,” when the Treasury Department has said the US would begin to be unable to pay its debts and could have to prioritize which bills go unpaid. The debt ceiling is the legal limit on how much the US can borrow in order to pay for a large portion of government spending. The US, in fact, hit <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/us/politics/debt-ceiling-economy-congress.html">the debt ceiling</a> in January; The Treasury is using “extraordinary measures” to keep the government afloat, but those will soon be exhausted as well. </p>
<p id="bkwvvc">Congressional Republicans and the White House remain in negotiations. Though members of <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress" data-source="encore">Congress</a> have already left the capital for their Memorial Day weekend break, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/slimmed-down-us-debt-ceiling-deal-takes-shape-sources-2023-05-25/">recent reporting</a> suggests that a deal might be in sight — but the most conservative members of the House<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/25/house-conservatives-mccarthy-biden-debt-talks-00098821"> don’t seem to like</a> some of the details. (House Democrats, for their part, also <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/25/house-democrats-debt-ceiling-disagreement-fight-00098764">don’t seem thrilled</a>.)</p>
<p id="8LMVRd">Most<a href="https://apnorc.org/projects/few-are-following-the-debate-closely-but-most-want-congress-to-increase-the-debt-limit-with-deficit-reduction-conditions/?doing_wp_cron=1684589990.0328559875488281250000"> public polling</a> shows a core challenge for Biden and the Democrats: The majority of Americans don’t seem to understand the technical details of the debt ceiling, or what a default would mean. Many voters view the future of the debt limit as contingent on some kind of spending cuts, and many seem willing to consider a default if Congress does not cut some spending.</p>
<p id="LIqjbL">That voters see a connection between spending cuts and the debt ceiling is already a huge win for Republicans — the White House and House Democratic leadership’s opening position had always been to pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase, keeping debates over budgets and spending separate. Democrats were partially counting on Republicans never getting on the same page with their list of demands; but since House Republicans passed their own debt ceiling bill last month, Biden and Democrats have had to engage on spending cut negotiations.</p>
<p id="S60Udm">Now that Biden and Democrats are negotiating, a default would likely not be viewed as the fault exclusively of Republicans’ demands: Most recent polls show nearly even splits in blame for both parties. A <a href="https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/raising-the-u-s-debt-ceiling/">Marist poll from last week</a>, for example, shows 45 percent of Americans would blame Republicans, 43 percent would blame Biden, and 7 percent would blame both. </p>
<p id="OKft8y">These polls also show a related problem for Biden and Democrats — Americans might not get the severity of a default.</p>
<p id="ozG7QV">CNN’s most<a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23822858/cnn-poll-debt-ceiling-biden-border-security.pdf"> recent polling</a> from last week, for example, shows that only 26 percent of Americans see a default as a “crisis.” That same poll found that only 24 percent of Americans think Congress should raise the debt ceiling no matter what — while 60 percent of Americans want to see spending cuts before Congress raises the debt ceiling. A recent Economist/YouGov poll<a href="https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/qsy7ekuxik/econTabReport.pdf"> shows something similar</a>: Half of Americans see a default as either a minor or major problem, but not a full-blown crisis.</p>
<p id="mNK4Y3">In other words, as it stands, Americans don’t seem to understand that the stability of the global economy and the imperative for America to avoid a recession are different issues from the political debates over the government’s budgeting and spending priorities. </p>
<p id="tBnLXM">House Republicans’ cuts-or-default strategy includes calls for more than $4 trillion in reductions to government spending. Republicans want to claw back unspent Covid relief money, rescind money meant to modernize the IRS, cancel <a href="https://www.vox.com/student-loan-debt" data-source="encore">student loan debt</a> relief, and implement work requirements for certain food stamp and Medicaid recipients — which could leave millions without health insurance.</p>
<p id="H1swqz">This confusion — and general voter apathy on the issue — has complicated Democratic groups’ efforts to try to keep pressure on House Republicans and avoid blame shifting onto Democrats and the White House for the political brinkmanship happening in DC.</p>
<p id="QbXh2s">“We’re talking about real draconian cuts to benefits that people in my rural community depend on,” Santos Garcia, the mayor of Madera, in California’s agricultural breadbasket, told me recently during a rally organized by the anti-MAGA Republican group Courage for America. “That’s why I’m trying to get the word out.”</p>
<p id="VHILoo">Garcia told me that his constituents have a hard time understanding the stakes of a default, and of the cuts that Republicans are trying to implement, because a lot of news coverage tends to cover these negotiations as standard political debate that happens on Capitol Hill. Regular folks, he said, don’t understand the severity of these deliberations until you start to talk to them about the things that might be lost if the country defaults — and also if Republicans’ proposed spending cuts to <a href="https://www.vox.com/social-programs" data-source="encore">social programs</a> like Pell Grants for low-income college students.</p>
<p id="lJgM3M">“So much of the news and <a href="https://www.vox.com/media" data-source="encore">the media</a> don’t talk to people in a way that they’ll understand. These issues get so partisan, and people tune them out on that part,” Garcia said. When he gets back to the Central Valley, currently represented by Republican Rep. John Duarte, he said he’s going to tell his constituents “to pick up the phone and talk to their congressman about passing a bipartisan bill to eliminate any notion of a default or these drastic cuts. We need to pay our bills, so that the federal government does not default.”</p>
<p id="lpPW3o">Maryam Idowu, one of Garcia’s constituents who joined him in DC for the rally, echoed some of that theory for how “real America” is feeling: “Some people are in tune to [the threat of default] but it just kind of depends on ‘how much is something going to affect me?’ And some people — they don’t think they’re going to be affected.”</p>
<p id="XfVwqC">That distance from DC deliberations has also complicated outreach efforts for some of Courage for America’s partners, including <a href="https://www.vox.com/influencers" data-source="encore">influencers</a> like Carlos Eduardo Espina, a law student from College Station, Texas and a Spanish-language creator. He posts frequent news updates about immigration along with his own analysis, but has noticed a difference in how his 6 million <a href="https://www.vox.com/tiktok" data-source="encore">TikTok</a> followers and 360,000 <a href="https://www.vox.com/instagram-news" data-source="encore">Instagram</a> followers engage with his posts about the debt ceiling — they simply don’t understand the issue. “Even for myself, it’s a very complex issue and that’s even with me completely understanding English,” he said. “I think that the closer it gets to the actual deadline to find a solution, we’ll start getting a lot more interest.”</p>
<p id="k2GpqX">And as voters get more informed and feel the effects of a default if it happens, it’s likely that they’ll want to assign blame to everyone in DC — but they’ll likely especially blame <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden" data-source="encore">Joe Biden</a>. The president doesn’t have the same good will Democrats had the last time a debt limit default nearly happened in 2011, or was threatened in 2013. A Fox News poll<a href="https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/05/Fox_May-19-22-2023_Cross-Tabs_May-24-Release.pdf"> from this month</a> shows that more Americans are willing to blame Biden (47 percent) for a default than were willing to blame President Barack Obama in 2011 (32 percent). In fact, Biden seems to be the focus of more blame than Obama ever was in 2011 or 2013, according to an<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/24/biden-hakeem-jeffries-debt-ceiling/"> analysis</a> by the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake.</p>
<p id="Lcyer9">There are a few possible explanations for this difference. While Americans were generally sour about the economy during the 2011 and 2013 debt ceiling fights, the country was recovering from the Great Recession, the economy felt like it was improving, and inflation was low. </p>
<p id="ON8HIQ">In 2023, voters in both parties are sour about the economy. And even if unemployment is historically very low, inflation remains high and Americans mostly blame Biden and Democrats for the economy. Forty-one percent of Americans say their views on the economy align closer to Republicans, compared to 29 percent who align with Democrats, <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23745836/cnn-poll-americans-views-of-the-economy-have-improved-but-overwhelming-majority-still-say-its-in-poor-shape.pdf">according to a March CNN poll</a>. Neither party really benefited from the debt ceiling fights of the last decade — but Republicans stand to gain a lot politically if the economy unravels under an unpopular Democratic president right before an election year.</p>
<p id="N39sbB">Brookings Institution fellow William Galston is one<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2023/05/15/what-americans-think-about-the-debt-ceiling-fight/"> outspoken proponent of this theory</a>. There’s pretty good evidence the budget disputes that result in government shutdowns tend to hurt Republicans politically, but the same isn’t true of defaults, since the country has never defaulted. It did come close in 2011, when the US’s credit rating was downgraded and the country came within 72 hours of defaulting.</p>
<p id="yYVa3J">“The actual economic effects of a government shutdown are almost nil on the public — but no one thinks that would be true about a debt ceiling breach,” Galston told me. “I’m convinced that, were a debt ceiling breach to have measurably negative consequences on the American public, President Biden would be negatively judged.”</p>
<p id="IzYtL5">During the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23357154/2022-midterm-elections-guide" data-source="encore">2022 midterms</a>, Biden and congressional Democrats were largely able to resist one of the basic rules of politics: that American voters punish the party in power for negative economic conditions. Democrats expanded their majority in the Senate, won key governors races, and minimized Republican gains in the House. But in presidential elections, voters hold presidents responsible for the economy. “Since the New Deal, whether rightly or wrongly, presidents have been held principally liable for the state of the economy,” Galston said. “If we do tip over, I don’t think people are going to like it at all.”</p>
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https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/28/23738815/debt-ceiling-us-default-votersChristian Paz