Politics

President Joe Biden addresses the nation on the budget deal that lifts the federal debt limit and averts a U.S. government default, from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Friday, June 2, 2023. | Jim Watson/AP Photo President Joe Biden on Saturday signed the debt ceiling bill, a capstone to months of… […]

Senators typically loathe the sort of top-down negotiations that produced the deal to lift the debt ceiling through 2024, preferring to use the chamber’s notorious bipartisan gangs that give them more direct input. And this time around only a handful of rank-and-file lawmakers were able to directly influence the process, most distinctly Sinema and Sen.… […]

“Sounded like there were a lot of areas of agreement. They are trying to write them down, sometimes that’s a challenge,” said Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who was in some of those huddles. At issue is the budget deal’s defense spending number, which would lock in defense spending below $900 billion over the next… […]

And Warren’s not the only one weighing whether the deal is better than the alternative. Even some liberals who are planning to vote against the bill acknowledge it’s better than default. Typically, it’s just Republicans who are hard to woo on lifting the debt ceiling — but this time Democrats are also agonizing over what… […]

Before the House vote, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the White House had spent weeks negotiating the bill that raised the debt ceiling through 2024 and cut spending, which Republicans had demanded as a condition for increasing the nation’s borrowing limit. Senate leaders largely stayed out of the discussions, allowing McCarthy to take the lead for… […]

Spending caps What the deal does: This fight was ostensibly about the national debt — and it produced a deal that locks in two years of caps on federal spending. For the fiscal year that kicks off in October, overall discretionary funding for non-defense programs would stay about the same as today’s total, while defense… […]

The legal storm is colliding with Justice’s campaign to unseat Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in next year’s election, and offers a test for the popular governor whose fossil fuel wealth defined his political rise in coal country. The latest legal challenge came Wednesday when the Justice Department sued Justice’s business enterprise and his son, James… […]

The spending bills portion of the statement reads that the two leaders “share the concern of many of our colleagues about the potential impact of sequestration and we will work in a bipartisan, collaborative way to avoid this outcome” of an automatic spending cut if Congress passes a stopgap spending bill, according to a copy… […]

With the debt ceiling bill having passed the House on Wednesday, and soon to pass the Senate, the president’s team is aiming to use the negotiations around it to its political advantage, according to more than a half dozen people familiar with the plan but not authorized to discuss internal strategy. Biden’s advisers are betting… […]

The House Rules Committee, often referred to as “the speaker’s committee” because it is generally packed with leadership allies, will meet at 3 p.m. Tuesday to set the stage for floor consideration of the debt limit measure. But unlike past Rules Committees, McCarthy’s is populated by arch-conservatives who may yet throw up road blocks to… […]