BREAKING: McCarthy gets debt-ceiling deal — with work requirements

Utterly predictable, although it still came about 24 hours later than I expected. On a holiday weekend when people are paying the least attention, Joe Biden finally cut a deal with Kevin McCarthy to raise the debt ceiling and end a game of chicken that Biden and Democrats lost months ago. House Republicans didn’t get everything they wanted, but Biden and the Democrats didn’t get anything they wanted except to limit the embarrassment:

President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Saturday reached an agreement in principle to raise the debt limit for two years while cutting and capping some government spending over the same period, a breakthrough after a marathon set of crisis talks that has brought the nation within days of its first default in history. …

The deal would raise the borrowing limit, which is currently $31.4 trillion, for two years — enough to get past the next presidential election.

According to a person familiar with the agreement, it also would impose new work requirements for some recipients of government aid, including food stamps and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. It would place new limits on how long certain recipients of food stamps — people under the age of 54, who do not have children — could benefit from the program. But it also would expand food stamp access for veterans and the homeless, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the package.

The tentative deal also claws back some unspent money from a previous pandemic relief bill, and reduces by $10 billion — to $70 billion from $80 billion — new enforcement funding for the I.R.S. to crack down on tax cheats. It includes measures meant to speed environmental reviews of certain energy projects. And it includes an enforcement measure, meant to avert a government shutdown later this year, that would reduce funding caps for the military and veterans and Congress does not pass into law all 12 regularly scheduled appropriations bills by the end of the year.

The work requirements on safety-net programs will enrage Biden’s allies, not just on principle but also because it hands McCarthy a big win. Without it, McCarthy probably wouldn’t get more than a handful of his caucus to back him. As it is, the reductions in the cuts they already passed are not going to make the Republicans happy, even if they have to swallow it at the eleventh hour.

But come on … they won. Biden and Chuck Schumer lost this weeks ago, and now they just caved. It would not surprise me if the Democrats knew this was coming all along, and they merely waited for a holiday weekend to give them enough cover to pull the trigger.

As I said, utterly predictable. Just like the way we knew McCarthy would win, because — again — he won the moment he got the debt-ceiling hike through the House. He forced Biden and Schumer to negotiate on his terms, and he kept enough of them to matter. We’ll have more on the deal as it comes together, and as the media tries to spin it any other way.

Update: This is apparently what counts as a win for Biden:

Republicans had sought to repeal Biden’s efforts to waive $10,000 to $20,000 in debt for nearly all borrowers who took out student loans. But the provision was a nonstarter for Democrats. The budget agreement keeps Biden’s student loan relief in place, though the Supreme Court will have the ultimate say on the matter.

The Supreme Court is dominated 6-3 by conservatives, and those justices’ questions in oral arguments showed skepticism about the legality of Biden’s student loans plan. A decision is expected before the end of June.

That plan is going to die a very well-deserved death at the Supreme Court no matter what, on a number of grounds. McCarthy probably put it in the bid so that Biden could claim a concession from Republicans in the final deal.