“It takes a while to make it happen, and we are working hard to make it happen,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy said of a debt-ceiling deal.
White House officials and Republican lawmakers were closing in Thursday on a deal that would raise the debt limit for two years while imposing strict caps on discretionary spending not related to the military or veterans for the same period.
Negotiators were beginning to draft the text of the agreement Thursday night.
The current compromise would raise the government’s borrowing limit for two years.
- The deal taking shape would allow Republicans to claim they were reducing some federal spending (while military and veteran spending would continue growing), and Democrats could claim to have spared most domestic programs.
- The current deal would also roll back $10 billion of the $80 billion Congress approved last year for an I.R.S. crackdown on high earners and corporations that evade taxes, though that provision was still under discussion.
- Another provision of the deal seeks to avert a government shutdown later in the year, and would attempt to take away Republicans’ ability to seek deeper cuts to government programs and agencies through the appropriations process later in the year.
Dingbat J. Trump weighed in from a tee shot on his golf course outside Washington.
Trump, who previously stated McCarthy should force a default if they don’t get what they want, approached a reporter for The New York Times, iPhone in hand, and showed a call with McCarthy.
McCarthy told reporters he had spoken briefly with Trump — “it came up just for a second,” the speaker said. “He was talking about, ‘Make sure you get a good agreement.’”