President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy persuaded themselves to accept a compromise agreement to reduce government expenditure and add borrowed funds to the nearly empty treasury.

They now have the more difficult challenge of persuading everyone else to eat what Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy called a “turd sandwich.”

irritable hardline Roy and other conservative budget watchdogs think McCarthy secretly consented to give them the authority to prevent any legislation they disagree with from being voted on in the House. McCarthy’s allies recall something different.

The hardliners spent Memorial Day going line by line through the 99-page debt ceiling bill’s text and publicly speculating as to why McCarthy could not obtain more cuts and concessions than a two-year cap on non-defense discretionary spending in exchange for removing the debt ceiling from discussion for two years.

See text of the debt limit bill.

Concerns also extend to liberal House Democrats who are dissatisfied with Biden’s ability to reach agreements, who are on the other side of the political spectrum. However, the same arguments that Biden may use to appease progressives will irritate Republicans, highlighting the difficulties that Washington’s top negotiators confront in persuading the far-left and far-right wings of their respective parties to accept this compromise.

first examination on Tuesday
Beginning on Tuesday, when it goes before the influential House Rules Committee, the bill will be put to a series of votes. The bill could receive a final vote in the House on Thursday if it can escape obstacles. The Senate would be its next possible destination, where it would encounter fresh opposition.

McCarthy let three ardent Republicans to serve on the committee that decides which bills are brought to the House floor, and Roy is one of them. The panel typically acts as the speaker’s rubber stamp. no longer. When McCarthy was seeking support to become speaker in January, he made the compromise of transferring power to the hardliners, including Roy and Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Ralph Norman of South Carolina.

Members of the House Freedom Caucus Roy and Norman have both openly criticized the debt agreement, while Massie has not done the same.

McCarthy granted the Freedom Caucus what authority?
Another issue is that Roy thinks McCarthy and the three hardliners made a handshake agreement in January under which they would each be able to veto a rule and prevent it from going before the entire House.

Roy tweeted, “A reminder that it was made clear both that nothing would pass Rules Committee without AT LEAST 7 GOP votes – AND that the Committee would not enable reporting out rules without unanimous Republican support. This was during Speaker efforts to establish the coalition.

On April 17, 2023, in the Javits Federal Building in New York City, Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, addresses the House Judiciary Committee field hearing on violent crimes in New York City.
As pressure mounts on a crucial swing vote, the Republican attempts to kill the debt limit deal in the House Rules Committee
According to CNN’s Capitol Hill crew, the second half of Roy’s claim—that a single Republican could obstruct legislation in the Rules Committee—surprised some Republicans and was refuted by top GOP sources.

The Freedom Caucus might mutiny, endangering McCarthy’s thin hold on the speaker’s gavel, if his panel allies go against the conditions of his alleged deal with the hardliners and send the debt bill to the entire house. (Recall the further concession McCarthy made to win the gavel in January: any member could propose a motion to remove the speaker.) Whether Massie will embrace the debt arrangement or side with Roy and Norman in denouncing it will determine a lot of things.

According to Norman, if the bipartisan agreement doesn’t undergo significant adjustments, he will vote against the regulation. He seems to be opposed to any legislation that Democrats would support based on the list of six demands he supplied in a text message over the weekend.

He stated over the weekend that he would vote against the rule “if the debt limit is raised above the 1.5 level, if the timeline is extended to 2025, IF the student loan payout is still intact, IF the IRS agent funding is still there, IF the provisions in the IRA are still intact, and IF the work requirement EXCLUDES MEDICAID.”

Related: The debt ceiling agreement’s key provisions

Republicans believe they are aiming for 150 House GOP votes or more, two sources told CNN on Monday. Biden team: Please pay attention to what isn’t being cut. But given the likelihood of opposition from numerous Republicans, no debt agreement will likely pass without Democratic support.

In phone talks with Democrats, White House representatives defended the agreement and urged them to place more emphasis on what was kept from being cut than on the relatively small reductions that would be made. And on Monday, they received an encouraging sign when the moderate New Democrat Coalition’s chair spoke out in favor of the legislation.

However, some Democrats expressed anger on Sunday over the White House’s decision to bargain with McCarthy using the borrowing cap as a bargaining chip.

Before the legislative text was made public, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that the White House should be concerned about progressives ultimately opposing the plan.

The Democrat from Washington state and others were incensed that while Biden was successful in keeping a plan for federal work requirements for people to qualify for Medicaid coverage out of the package, he did allow for temporary additional work requirements for some people who receive government food assistance. However, the law would also broaden the group of people who are exempt from these rules, including veterans, the homeless, and former foster children.

On Monday, when asked if he could win over progressives, Biden replied, “I don’t know.”

My relationship with Jayapal is good. Before leaving for Delaware, he said from the White House: “I haven’t had a chance to speak with her yet.

There isn’t much time for arguing over particular matters. Consider that there are numerous billionaires who currently possess more cash than the US Treasury to get a notion of how short the US government is. The latest anticipated X date, or the day when the US will not be able to fulfill all of its obligations, is June 5. Payments are due in early June.