‘What Basis Is There for Confidence?’: House Freedom Caucus Decries McCarthy and Debt Deal

Members of the House Freedom Caucus expressed their frustration Tuesday over the debt ceiling deal that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) brokered with President Biden over the weekend, accusing the GOP leader of negotiating their priorities away while questioning his fitness for the position of Speaker of the House.

In a statement, McCarthy offered, “We still have a lot of work to do. But I believe this is an agreement in principle that’s worthy of the American people. It has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce, and rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes, no new government programs. There’s a lot more within the bill.”

A reporter asked Representative Dan Bishop (R., N.C.) how much confidence he has in McCarthy after a tentative agreement was announced to raise the debt limit for two years in exchange for multiple Republican-requested spending cuts.

“None,” the congressman said. “Zero. What basis is there for confidence? You cannot forfeit the tool of Republican unity. It was not necessary to do.”

Bishop alleged that McCarthy was “lying” in his positive characterization of the bill that would stave off a debt crisis wherein the U.S. defaults on its obligations.

“The bill is chock full of things that are cosmetic and artificial with the same exact effect,” he said.

Early reports of the deal suggest that non-defense discretionary spending would be capped at a one percent increase until 2025. In addition to a $29 billion clawback of unused government pandemic funds, the bill would rescind nearly $2 billion of the $70 billion allocated to the IRS for new agents via the Inflation Reduction Act, according to Axios. Some GOP representatives have pointed out that much of the IRS expansion Biden imposed would be preserved.

Freedom Caucus member Ralph Norman (R., S.C.) vowed Tuesday to vote against the debt-ceiling compromise, which he told NPR is “unacceptable and “nothing like the bill that we had proposed,” if it is not amended. Norman sits on the U.S. House Rules Committee, which has significant power in determining whether the bill advances.

“McCarthy has lot some trust on how this has been handled,” he told reporters Tuesday.

In an interview with Glenn Beck Tuesday, Representative Chip Roy (R., Texas) said that the debt deal McCarthy made was a “betrayal of the power-sharing arrangement that we put in place.” McCarthy agreed to demands from the House Freedom Caucus to earn their votes in the multi-day speakership election marathon in January.

On Twitter, Roy argued the deal would add $4 trillion to the debt while establishing a two-year spending freeze without substantive policy reforms. For instance, the bill upholds Biden’s illegal student-debt bailout, leaves many chunks of Covid funds unreclaimed, and only includes minor work requirements for certain entitlements and no work requirements for Medicaid, he said.

Roy pledged to oppose the deal, saying,

“We have to relook at how our leadership structure is in place,” Roy told reporters Tuesday. “We can’t do what we’re doing right now. We were being very successful for five months. This was a mistake. We abandoned the structure that was making us successful.”