Things looked bleak for House Republicans five months ago. A divided caucus took 15 ballots before finally installing Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker. The Democratic Party was seemingly unified behind President Joe Biden’s call for a “clean” debt limit hike. And it looked as though the GOP was destined for another bruising leadership battle after Democrats peeled off enough centrist Republicans to get their way.
But House Republicans defied expectations and passed their own debt limit legislation with significant permitting and administrative state reforms, leaving the White House without a plan either to raise the debt limit or meet the impossibly high expectations it had stoked among Democrats.
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The debt limit deal McCarthy reached with Biden is not a blowout in Republicans’ favor. This was not a 70-0 shutout. But overall, the final deal has to be considered a Republican win, even if a squeaker.
The top-line deal boasts $1 trillion in spending cuts, but those are spread out over 10 years, and if Republicans lose the White House again in 2024, they are unlikely to materialize. That does not mean there aren’t any real spending cuts in the bill. As written, it looks like the legislation would cut $55 billion in spending this year and $81 billion next year. Those aren’t huge wins, but they’re real policy wins that will materialize. House Republicans should be proud.
The wins don’t end there.
Republicans didn’t secure all the ambitious regulatory reform in their previously passed Lower Energy Costs Act, but they did simplify the permitting process, requiring one lead agency on all environmental reviews, allowing agencies to exempt more projects from review, and creating a deadline for agency action on reviews. There is still much reform that needs to be done to the National Environmental Policy Act so that the United States can become a country that builds again, but these reforms are a good first step.
Republicans also failed to get the REINS Act into the debt limit deal. This is legislation that would require congressional approval for any regulation with an economic impact of over $100 million. But they did get language that requires the Government Accountability Office to track the costs of all regulations and triggers a vote in Congress whenever an agency creates new regulatory costs without reducing existing regulatory costs. Biden will be able to exercise a veto if Congress eliminates any regulations, but this new mechanism will force Democrats in Congress to take political accountability for Biden’s regulatory excess.
House Republicans also secured stricter work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, clawed back $1.4 billion in IRS funding, and ended Biden’s student debt limit payment pause. None of these reforms will drain the swamp by themselves, but they are all steps in the right direction.
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“Prior to this deal, our country was careening towards bankruptcy,” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said, “and after this deal, our country will still be careening towards bankruptcy.” This is true. But Republicans were never going to fix the federal government’s financial mess with razor-thin control of one chamber of Congress.
If some Republicans are unhappy with this debt limit deal, then they need to concentrate on helping other Republicans win more elections. The only way Republicans in Washington will score bigger legislative victories is if voters elect more Republicans to go to Washington.
