The Republicans and the Biden administration have come to a deal to raise ꦛthe US debt ceiling to prevent a debt🅰 default.
As it's a negotiated settlements, both the🦹 sides made concessions to come to the common ground, so no side is absolutely happy.
However, the facts that McCarthy brought President Joe Biden to the negotiating table, hammered a deal checking government spending, and has so far managed to con𝄹tain the hard-right of his own party suggest that this is the high point of his congressional career so far.
McCarthy was never known as a policy wonk with his name on major bills but was a political strategist who rose to becomeཧ the Speaker in polarised times of a party lea🗹ning more right than ever.
While McCarthy has had 🦩a taste of victory for now, he still has to get the law passed in Congress and see it signed by B♋iden into law before the June 5 debt default deadline.
Kevin McCarthy, the unlikely House Speaker
One morning amid the debt ceiling crisis, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy climbed onto his mountain bike and took a ride along the National Mall in Washington DC, marvelling at the monuments. The next day, he arrived for negotiations at tꦰhe Capitol carting i🍬n tortilla chips and queso for the beleaguered reporters waiting outside his office during the 24/7 talks.
McCarthy, with his laid-back California vibe, was never Washington's bet to become Speaker, having almost missed seizing the gavel in a history-making spectacle at the start of this year. But the 58-year-old is now leading House R🐓epublicans in the high-wire act 🎀of his career: Having negotiated with Democratic President Joe Biden over raising the nation's debt limit, he now must deliver the votes to pass the spending cuts package into law.
The standoff is being watched the world over as the United States stares down a June 5 deadline when it could run short of cash to pay its bills, potentially hurling the American economy into chaos with an unprecedented de🦄fault and taking the global economy into a crisis.
McCarthy commands only a slim 🐠majority in the House and must 🌜reach out to Democrats to support the compromise. But neither side is expected to be happy with the deal announced late Saturday.
If McCarthy succeeds in pushing the budget-cutting deal through Congress, it will be an accomplishment like nothing he has achieved before. Or he could🍃 lose it all, if the compromise he reached with the Democratic White House becomes so objectionable to the conservative flank that Republicans try to oust him from his job.
"One thing you've always learned about me: I don't give up it," McCarthy told reporters as h🍎e arrived at the Capitol on Saturday morning. "Doesn't matter how many times it takes. You want to make sure you get an agreem൲ent worthy of the American public."
Throughout the weeks of gruell♎ing negotiations McCarthy has remained relentlessly optimistic, breezing through the anxiety-filled hours, seemingly certain of the outcome.
Underestimated from the start, he is nothing if not relentless. To become speaker, McCarthy endured 14 failed votes before finally securing the gavel on t꧑he 15th try, only after he had tired his colleagues out and given hard-right conservatives all sorts of promises and concessions.
McCarthy isn't known as a seasoned 🔯legislator, one who has delved deeply into pol💃icy details or put his name on many big bills.
Having arrived in Congress in ಌ2007, he rose swiftly to leadership as a political strategist, not a policy wonk.
Younger than the previous generation of congressional leaders, McCarthy is decades younger than Biden. The president ꦐhas been in elected office since McCarthy was a young man growing up in dusty Bakersfield, running a sandwich shop counter from his uncle's yogurt shop and becoming immersed in Reagan-era politics.
Kevin McCarthy's debt ceiling talks
The White House refused initially to engage with McCarthy over the debt ceiling, insisting the Congress must simply do its job, raise the nation's debt limit and skip🐬 the political brinksmanship.
Powered by a hard-rigꩵht flank, McCarthy was determined to extract federal spending cuts to programs many Americans rely on in exchange for the votes in Congress needed to raise the nation's debt limit.
McCarthy laid down a marker in his first meeting with Biden back in February. The new Republican🌠 speaker refused to raise any taxes to help offset federal deficits, including Biden's proposals to roll back some of the Trump-era tax breಌaks for the wealthiest Americans and corporations.
The White House ultimately relented on negotiating with McCarthy after he pushed the GOP's preferred debt-ceiling plan through the Hous🅘e, uniting his majority for the talཧks to come.
Democrats argue the showdown over the debt limit should not be the new normal way of doing the nation's business🉐.
Despite pleas from progressives, Biden has been reluctant to invoke powers und♎er the 14th Amendment to raise the borrowing capacity on his own, unconvinced of its legal soundness.
The debt ceiling fight is not one that Congress needs to take on, and historically it was rarely like this. Often a routine endeavour, the vote to lift the debt limit, 𝓀now USD 31 trillion, would allow the Treasury Department to keep paying the bills without any risk of default, ensuring America's standing as the world economy with the most trusted currency.
Once Republicans ꩵseized power in the House during last year's midterm elections it was almost certain a debt ceiling showdown would land at Biden's doorstep. It was that way the last time Republicans swept into power, in 2011, on the tea party wave that launched the new era of brinksmanship in Washington, using꧒ the debt ceiling as leverage.
Challenges from the hard-right Republicans
But these showdowns have tested GOP leaders as well, bedeviling past Republi💯can speakers unable to fully satisfy 📖the party's increasingly conservative wing.
The hard-right House Freedo🀅m Caucus chased one former speaker, John Boehner, to early retirement. Another speakeꦯr, Paul Ryan, left office after a short term.
To become speaker, McCarthy worked hard to appeal to those same forces, agreeing to revive a House rule that allows any single member to call for a vote to oust the s𒊎peaker. Forcing him from office would require a majority vote.
That threat hangs over McCarthy at every step as he tri🐼es t🐓o manage a debt ceiling deal.
Conservative Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., warned in a tweet Saturday, before the deal was announced, that if the speaker brought back a “clean” debt ceiling increase, meaning one lacking the party pr♏iorities, “it's wa🐬r”.
But even if conservatives grow frustrated with McCarthy, he still has one important voice in his cornಌer: foꦑrmer President Donald Trump.
As one of t💃he earliest backers of Trump's first White House bid, McCarthy has tried to stay close to Trump despite ♔their on-again, off-again relationship. He said they spoke in recent days and Trump told him, “Make sure you get a good agreement”.
(With AP inputs)
