Senate passes bipartisan bill to raise debt ceiling and cap future spending

The Senate on Thursday voted to pass the bipartisan measure to raise the nation’s borrowing limit and cap future spending, sending the legislation to President Biden’s desk with just days to go before a potential US debt default. 

The so-called Fiscal Responsibility Act sailed through the Senate in a 63-36 vote, one day after it overwhelmingly passed the House with more Democratic support than Republican. 

The bill’s passage ends a weeks-long standoff between Capitol Hill and the White House that threatened to send the nation into default.

The upper chamber struck down all 11 amendments to the bill proposed by senators in 11 straight votes before the bill’s final passage. 

Sen. Roger Marshall’s (R-Kan.) proposal to restart construction of the border wall and place thousands more Border Patrol agents at the southern border, as well as Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Va.) push to remove approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline – a 300-mile gas pipeline project from northwest West Virginia to southern Virginia – were among the add-ons that failed to be adopted before the bill’s passage.

Marshall’s amendment failed in a 46-51 vote and Kaine’s proposal was felled by a 30-69 margin.

Each amendment, as well as the final bill, required a 60-vote threshold to pass. 

If any amendment had been approved, the bill would’ve had to go back to the House for another vote — burning precious time before the expected default date.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) warned that any change to the bill would “almost guarantee default.”

The legislation, agreed upon between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the Memorial Day weekend, avoids a potentially catastrophic default on US debt obligations that loomed on June 5, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, so long as Biden signs it by Monday, as expected. 

In addition to the amendment votes, Republicans demanded that Schumer commit to bringing up all 12 appropriations bills this year to avoid an across-the-board spending cut that the legislation calls for.

Republicans also wanted a commitment from Schumer to bring up legislation to increase defense spending and assist Ukraine against invading Russian forces. 

Schumer opened Thursday’s session urging quick passage of the bill that would raise the federal debt ceiling to $31.4 trillion and limit non-defense discretionary spending to 1% annual growth, claw back tens of billions of dollars in unspent COVID-19 relief funds and tie food benefit programs to work requirements.

It would also cut $136 billion in federal spending, at least $1.4 billion of which would come from the Internal Revenue Service — far less than the $72 billion cut Republicans passed in one of their first bills this Congress to thwart the hiring of an additional 87,000 IRS agents via Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

“Time is a luxury the Senate does not have if we want to prevent default. June 5 is less than four days away,” Schumer said Thursday morning, vowing that the Senate would stay in session until the bill has passed.

In between votes on amendments, Schumer read a statement on the Senate floor that was negotiated with Republicans asserting that the debt ceiling bill will not constrain efforts to pass emergency aid packages for Ukraine and respond to national security threats such as China. 

“This debt ceiling deal does nothing to limit the Senate’s ability to appropriate emergency supplemental funds to ensure our military capabilities are sufficient to deter China, Russia and our other adversaries, and respond to ongoing and growing national security threats, including Russia’s evil ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, our competition ongoing with China and its growing threat to Taiwan, Iranian threats to American interests and those of our partners in the Middle East or any other emerging security crisis,” Schumer declared.

“Nor does this debt ceiling limit the Senate’s ability to appropriate emergency supply supplemental funds to respond to various national issues, such as disaster relief, combating the fentanyl crisis or other issues of national importance,” he added.

The House speaker celebrated his agreement with Biden and its passage in the lower chamber on Wednesday in a 314-117 vote, calling the measure the “largest cut in American history: $2.1 trillion.” 

“We put a cap on the government growth at the same time. And we got work requirements for welfare … And then we clawed back all that COVID money … For the first time in 40 years were able to reform the environmental review [process] … It took them seven years to build a road. That’s getting narrowed down to one or two years,” McCarthy told John Catsimatidis, host of the “Cats & Cosby Show” on WABC 770 Thursday. 

McCarthy dismissed GOP concerns over the legislation, arguing, “Everyone has their own opinion … Some people thought they wanted more defense spending. Some people want more cuts … I think we found the sweet spot. I just didn’t want to be known in history that I voted against the largest cut in American history.”