June 1, 2023 Senate passes US debt ceiling bill

Senate leaders have worked all day to get to an agreement on votes tonight on amendments and then the final passage of the debt ceiling bill.

They have proposed a list of 11 amendments followed by a final vote on the debt ceiling bill, according to a notice sent to all senators that was obtained by CNN.

All but two votes would be subject to a 60-vote threshold. Two of the amendments are proposed at a simple majority threshold. All are expected to fail other than the final passage of the bill.

They need all 100 senators to sign off on the deal to start voting.

If there’s an agreement, this would push the final passage vote until very late into the night, potentially past midnight.

Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to hold a news conference following the last vote.

Elizabeth Warren, Pramila Jayapal, Brendan Boyle and Nancy Pelosi.

Even as President Joe Biden appears to have pushed off reaching the next debt limit until 2025, top Democrats on Capitol Hill say what he really needs to do is what he should have done last fall: Come out in favor of a drastic change to strip Congress of this power forever.

Given the current math in the chamber, every senator in the Democratic Caucus would need to support such a change. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he couldn’t get votes from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin or Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who continues to caucus with Democrats, despite leaving the party.

But Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle – along with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others – told CNN that this time around was a breaking point.

After years of obsessing mostly on his own over changing the debt limit, racking up trivia like how the process was an inadvertent fluke of World War I, Boyle said he started feeling the change three weeks ago, when he stood up after a presentation about expected cuts at a dinner of 50 House Democrats and pleaded, “We absolutely have to resolve here and now, this is the last time we go through this craziness.”

Boyle, a longtime and committed Biden ally, said he wasn’t expecting the loud round of applause that night, or the steady stream of colleagues who have come up to him on the House floor since asking to sign on to his bill, but he’s glad to have it, even as White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa ducked a firm answer on whether Biden would support the change. The president’s focus, Kikukawa said, remains preventing default, and “other options are a question for another day.”

Originally Boyle backed eliminating the debt limit entirely. But over the years, he refined the proposal in an attempt to broaden its appeal, and his most recent bill gives the administration the authority through the Treasury Department to raise the debt limit, while retaining Congress’s ability to override that decision if it wants to actively force the issue.

Several swing district Democrats, though, told CNN that they were wary of supporting a change, calling the debt limit authority an important check on the presidency and on spending, despite their opposition to how it was used this time.

The biggest problem in making a change, Boyle said, is probably attention span – for all the people who’ve been coming up to him lately to stay committed through whatever will come over next year’s elections, and possibly much longer until Democrats again have the power they didn’t use last year.

“Human beings have a tendency to forget. This has been such a torturous experience for my Democratic colleagues that I hope they will not forget,” Boyle said. “However you voted on this deal, the one thing we need to be fully united behind is the next time we are in charge, we need to never again be placed in this situation.”

Read the full story here.

The Dow rose more than 150 points on Thursday as investors grew increasingly optimistic that the debt limit deal will pass in the Senate.

GOP Sens. Rick Scott and Mitt Romney told CNN that senators are planning to conclude voting on the debt limit deal Thursday evening, while GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said he is “increasingly optimistic” that the vote will happen tonight.

Still, the deal needs an agreement of all 100 senators to pass, and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have raised concerns with the spending level in the bill.

Investors are also looking to the May jobs report due Friday morning. Economists expect a net gain of 190,000 jobs, according to Refinitiv, which would be a significant cooldown from April but still slightly above the average monthly gains seen in the years leading to the Covid pandemic.

Shares of JPMorgan Chase rose 1.4% after the bank said it is closing 25% of collapsed First Republic’s branches, after it acquired the regional lender last month.

ZipRecruiter shares rose about 2% after the job search site said it will slash 20% of its staff by the end of a month in a late Wednesday filing.

Dollar General shares slid 19.5% after the retailer missed earnings and revenue expectations, citing a challenging macroeconomic environment.

Dell Technologies shares rose 1.5% after shares were briefly halted on an early strong earnings release.

Here’s where things stood this afternoon:

As stocks settle after the trading day, levels might still change slightly.

Sen. Mitt Romney talks to reporters at the Capitol on June 1 in Washington, DC. 

GOP Sens. Rick Scott and Mitt Romney told CNN that senators are looking to finish up the debt limit vote tonight.

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham also said he is “increasingly optimistic” that the Senate will vote on the deal tonight. 

He and others who are concerned about the deal’s spending levels are seeking assurances from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that they’ll move a separate aid package for Ukraine as well as a supplemental spending bill for defense programs, while GOP Sen. Susan Collins wants a commitment to move all 12 appropriations bills on the floor. 

Asked by CNN whether he thinks they’ll get those assurances, Graham said “we’re talking,” adding, “I think Senator Schumer is sympathetic to what I’m saying.”

Earlier Thursday, Graham said he would not be supporting the bill.

GOP Sen. Mike Rounds also said he was optimistic they’ll finish up work today, but warned “it could be a late night,” since there are also expected to be a number of amendment votes.

What this means: This would include voting on amendments, which likely will fail, and a final passage vote.

They still need an agreement of all 100 senators, but the goal is to get a final vote tonight.

Senators from both parties continued to raise their concerns about the debt limit deal, with Republicans arguing that it doesn’t go far enough to cut spending, and Democrats saying it went too far.

CNN’s Lauren Fox contributed reporting to this post.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, who is deep in negotiations over getting a time agreement for a final vote on the debt ceiling bill, told reporters Thursday that the vote is more likely to occur on Friday. 

“I would say it’s trending more towards tomorrow,” the Republican from South Dakota said.

There are a number of amendment votes senators want, plus other commitments, such as GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who wants assurances from Senate leaders to move on a Ukraine funding package later this year.

All 100 senators need to agree to set up a final vote.

After several weeks of tense negotiations, President Joe Biden and House Republicans reached an agreement in principle over the weekend to address the debt limit and cap spending.

The drama is by no means over. After the legislation passed in the House Wednesday, it now needs to pass in the Senate.

Here’s what we know about what’s in the deal, based on the bill text, White House sources and information circulated by House Republicans:

Addresses the debt ceiling: The agreement would suspend the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt limit through January 1, 2025. This removes it as a potential issue in the 2024 presidential election.

Caps non-defense spending: Under the deal, non-defense spending would remain relatively flat in fiscal 2024 and increase by 1% in fiscal 2025, after certain adjustments to appropriations were made, according to a White House official. After fiscal 2025, there would be no budget caps.

Protects veterans’ medical care: The deal would maintain full funding for veterans’ health care and would increase support for the PACT Act’s toxic exposure fund by nearly $15 billion for fiscal year 2024, according to a White House source. The House GOP fact sheet says veterans’ medical care would be fully funded.

Expands work requirements: The agreement calls for temporarily broadening of work requirements for certain adults receiving food stamps. Currently, childless, able-bodied adults ages 18 to 49 are only able to get food stamps for three months out of every three years unless they are employed at least 20 hours a week or meet other criteria. The agreement would increase the upper limit of the mandate to age 55 in phases, according to the bill text.

Claws back some Covid-19 relief funds: The deal would rescind roughly $28 billion in unobligated funds from the Covid-19 relief packages that Congress passed to respond to the pandemic, according to the House GOP.

Cuts Internal Revenue Service funding: The deal would repurpose $10 billion from fiscal 2024 and another $10 billion from fiscal 2025 appropriations to be used in non-defense areas, according to the White House source. This provision does not appear in the text of the bill, but another source familiar with the deal said both sides have agreed to it.

Restarts student loan repayments: Under the deal, borrowers would have to begin paying back their student loans at the end of the summer, as the Biden administration has already announced, according to a third source familiar with the debt ceiling talks. The pause has been in effect since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

Maintains climate and clean energy measures: The agreement would not make any changes to the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate and clean energy provisions, according to the White House talking points. House Republicans had sought to repeal the law’s clean energy tax credits and subsidies.

Expedites pipeline in West Virginia: The agreement would also speed the creation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline in West Virginia.

Sen. Richard Durbin speaks to reporters in the Senate subway in the Capitol on Wednesday, May 31.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said he will urge his Democratic colleagues to vote for the debt limit deal, even if he has to “swallow hard on some parts of it.”

“Default is not an option, and that means we have to pass this bill,” Durbin said. “I’m going to have to swallow hard on some parts of it — I’m sure other members say the same thing. But the responsible thing to do for America is to pass it.”

Durbin added that the House vote was a good indication of bipartisan support, and he thinks the deal would pass tonight or tomorrow. “We have our own issues to resolve in the Senate, but I think it’ll pass,” he said.

Other Democrats are similarly conflicted about provisions in the deal but believe it’s their best option.

“I’m pretty certain I’m going to vote for it, holding my nose,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal from New York said.

“My level of concern has been eased greatly as I’ve reviewed the details,” Blumenthal added. And while he is reluctant about the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline, “we basically have no choice but to swallow it at this point, if you want the nation to avoid default.”

Blumenthal described the White House negotiators as doing “yeoman’s work” and said it “cut probably the best possible deal under the circumstances.” He added: “But in the future, there ought to be reliance on the 14th Amendment.”

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham blasted the debt limit deal cut by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the White House, pointing to the level of defense spending in the proposal that he says will be detrimental to the Pentagon.  

Graham told CNN he would not be supporting the bill.

“I think this is one of the most ill-conceived ideas for the national defense I’ve seen since the 2011 sequestration,” Graham said, referring to the 2011 deal to avert default, which led to cuts to the Pentagon and domestic programs.

“I know in divided government, it’s tough, but don’t tell me that this is the best we could do. The party of Ronald Reagan is in jeopardy,” he said. “This is really dumb.”

Graham said that he would oppose a time agreement through the weekend unless Republicans get amendment votes and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agrees to bring up another supplemental for Ukraine funding. Both of these will very likely happen, so Graham probably won’t have to go through with this threat. 

“I’m talking to President Zelensky at one o’clock today. He’s confused,” Graham said. “I want him to know that this budget deal does not take off the table the ability to help Ukraine with their liberation efforts, that there will be more money coming through a supplemental.” 

Sen. John Cornyn, a member of Senate Republican leadership, said, “I think we’re being jammed by Joe Biden. We’re backed up here against the X-date, and this could have happened months ago. So I’m not happy with him. I’m not happy with the process.”

US Sen. John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, at the US Capitol on March 28 in Washington, DC.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune told reporters that he expects more than half a dozen amendments will be offered on the debt ceiling agreement, and that discussions are still ongoing about the timeline for the vote in the chamber.

“We got a vote at noonish, and we’ll get a better sense and we’re having conversations this morning with people about what they actually need to have voted on and try and set up a kind of agreement that would facilitate getting those votes and hopefully moving on the bill,” the Republican from South Dakota said. 

Thune would not say how many Republicans he expected to vote for the bill, but earlier this week when asked by CNN if nine Republicans would support the bill, he said yes. 

The minority whip said that the vote in the House last night “hopefully bodes well” for the Senate. 

“I think that was a very strong vote among Republicans over there and hopefully bodes well for how we are able to execute on it here,” Thune said.

Thune said his conference is “trying to narrow the list” of amendments “so we can start to execute on it.”

The number of amendments is “in the neighborhood between six and 10,” he said.

When asked if members could, hypothetically, make it to their mid-morning flights on Friday, Thune replied: “I think there’s a chance.”

CNN’s Haley Talbot and Kristin Wilson contributed reporting to this post.