House passes debt ceiling bill, sending it to the Senate

WASHINGTON, DC (AP) — The House has approved the debt ceiling and budget cuts package, sending it to the Senate.

President Joe Biden negotiated the deal with Speaker Kevin McCarthy to avert a U.S. default crisis.

They worked to assemble a coalition of centrist Democrats and Republicans to push it to approval over blowback from conservatives and some progressives.

The U.S. was facing a potentially disastrous default in less than a week if Congress failed to act.

Despite deep disappointment from hard-right Republicans that budget cuts don’t go far enough, it was approved on a bipartisan House vote with Democrats.

The Senate is expected to act quickly by the end of the week.

Before Wednesday night’s vote in the House, Congressman David Rouzer sent a statement about the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

“The calculation here is quite simple,” Rouzer said. “There are three options: pass the Fiscal Responsibility Act, pass a clean debt ceiling bill without any reforms, or default on our payment obligations.  The Fiscal Responsibility Act includes the largest spending cut to ever come before the full House.  It includes significant reforms to speed up construction of energy and infrastructure projects to boost American energy production.  It includes work requirements for able bodied adults without dependents who are on welfare.  These and the other common sense reforms included in the package will help improve the growth of the economy necessary to generate more revenue for the Treasury and bend the spending curve back to Fiscal Year 2022 levels — all of which puts us on the path to reduce the national debt.”