McCarthy Pushes GOP Debt Bill Forward After Dead-of-Night Rewrite

While at least two Republicans reiterated their opposition to the bill, dozens of others fell steadily behind the modified plan Wednesday morning. During a closed-door meeting, GOP lawmakers from all corners of the convention — including hard-line conservatives and swing-seat Midwesterners — spoke in support, according to five Republicans in the room.. Even a frequent McCarthy foe, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), offered stirring comments about the need to pass it, the five said.

Meanwhile, McCarthy privately argued to his members that the changes were mostly “technical” as he stressed the need to unify behind the GOP’s plan to deliver to President Joe Biden in future debt negotiations.

“It shall pass. That’s fine,” said the representative. Ralph Norman (RSC)

With just four votes to go, assuming full attendance, GOP leaders will have to bond their entire convention into debt. As of Wednesday morning, deputies. Nancy Mays (RSC) and Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said Wednesday that they are opposed.

“I had a meeting scheduled yesterday and they didn’t show up, so I didn’t,” Burchett said Wednesday, while predicting the leadership would not need his vote to pass the bill.

Additionally, Rep. Andy Picks (R-Ariz.) is a “lean no” on the bill as it mounts an ineffective push to return to fiscal year 2019 spending levels. and representative. Matt Gates (R-Fla.) was frustrated that the deal was cut in the middle of the night, saying there was “no way to run the railroad.”

Yet many GOP lawmakers made it clear they supported the plan thanks to McCarthy and his leadership team’s eleventh-hour compromise, which proposed several changes to the bill.

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It happened just after 2 a.m. when he was chairman of the House Budget Committee Jody Arrington (R-Texas) offered the Hail Mary — a so-called manager’s amendment — to meet the demands of eight Midwestern states and a separate group of disgruntled conservatives.

Early Wednesday morning, several GOP holdouts with ethanol concerns signaled overnight that they would flip their votes to yes on the changes, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Going into the vote, all eight biofuel captures appeared to be on board.

“Our goal was to protect renewable fuel investments, ethanol and bio-diesel, and we achieved that through our negotiations with the speaker,” the Republican representative said. Mark AlfordA Trump-aligned first-term Missourian.

Representative Sock is fine (R-Iowa) said he expects his entire state’s representatives to support the bill once they finish reviewing the language, “not only to vote yes, but to move this forward as a big win for renewable fuels.”

On the right side of the convention, McCarthy won while representing the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said he supports the bill. Many of his members including representatives. Bob Good (R-Va.), Michael Cloud (R-Texas) and Norman signaled their support for the bill.

“We’ve got to get to 218. It’s not perfect. It’s a step in the right direction. We’ve got to be in the arena and be on offense,” Perry said.

He said his ultra-conservative members broadly see the loan plan as “a step in the right direction.”

Earlier this week, Perry, Goode and other members of the Freedom Caucus publicly warned that they were undecided on the bill as they pushed to tighten work requirements for government programs. In addition to wanting to speed up their implementation, some conservatives wanted to increase the number of hours recipients must work from 20 to 30 hours per week.

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Although GOP leaders did not abandon the latter objection, they did make several other changes.

The revised proposal accelerates changes to work requirements for recipients of food stamps and other federal benefits — a move intended to appease a small group of conservatives that includes Gates. Starting in September, states will be barred from saving unused deductions under the SNAP food assistance program, and additional restrictions on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program will begin in October.

White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt was quick to criticize the changes, saying McCarthy had “cut a deal with the most extreme MAGA elements of his party to speed up food assistance for hundreds of thousands of older Americans.”

Indeed, Democrats have come out strongly against the GOP’s proposed cuts. Representative Ted Liu (D-Calif.), the deputy chairman of the caucus, said Wednesday morning that “his party will be united in opposing this radical bill.”

The GOP proposal would eliminate key parts of the Democratic tax, health care and climate bill signed last summer. Among the spending would be repealed: $1 billion to adopt building codes for energy-efficient construction, $5 billion in loans to support energy infrastructure projects, $1.9 billion to improve transit access to neighborhoods, $200 million for national park system maintenance for programs to reduce climate pollution and $5 billion in grants.

The revised bill would still repeal tax credits on clean fuels, but added an exception that would allow the tax credit to continue for those involved in contracts or investments that produce sustainable jet fuel or other “clean” fuels. April 19. The amendment would also clear changes to the incentive structure for renewable diesel, second-generation biofuels, carbon dioxide sequestration and biodiesel.

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GOP leaders continued to downplay how much they changed the law: “Nothing changed in the bill,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said.

Catherine Tully-McManus, Nicholas Wu and Jennifer Scholtz contributed to this report.

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