Analysis McCarthy’s moment: US debt win secures Republican House speaker’s standing

US lawmakers voted to raise the national borrowing limit as a crucial first step to averting a catastrophic default

Speaker Kevin McCarthy marshalled two-thirds of his often fractious House Republican majority to enact the legislation

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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy persuaded more than two thirds of his party to back the debt bill. Photo: AP

Published: 2:23pm, 1 Jun 2023

Kevin McCarthy earned his stripes as Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives on Wednesday, navigating fierce hardline opposition to pass a debt ceiling bill containing federal spending limits that President Joe Biden for months vowed to resist.

Six months after he endured 15 humiliating floor votes just to be elected speaker, McCarthy proved capable of dragging Biden into negotiations over spending and other Republican priorities, and then marshalling two-thirds of his often fractious House Republican majority to enact bipartisan legislation.

“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,” McCarthy told reporters after the vote, repeating one of his comments from the January night he was finally confirmed as speaker.

The House approved by a 314-117 margin the bill, which lifts the government’s US$31.4 trillion debt ceiling in exchange for cutting non-defence discretionary spending and stiffening work requirements in assistance programmes.

Yet it was a bruising victory for McCarthy. The bill gained 165 votes from Democrats, outnumbering the 149 from members of McCarthy’s own Republican Party.

The bill now goes to the narrowly Democratic-controlled Senate, which must enact it and get it to Biden’s desk by June 5 to avoid a crippling US default.