Lawmakers go on Memorial Day break as debt ceiling deadline approaches.

Debt Ceiling Negotiations Progress as House Members Head Home for Memorial Day

As the deadline to raise the debt ceiling deadline approaches.”>debt ceiling inches closer and negotiations progress in a positive direction, House members head home for Memorial Day, expecting to be called back early next week to vote on the bill.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) negotiators, Reps. Garret Graves (R-LA) and Patrick McHenry (R-NC), met among themselves late into the night on Wednesday, and neither answered questions as they left. They will continue working until they have a deal and while most members go home for recess. Once a deal is in place and the 72-hour clock begins to tick, members will receive a 24-hour notice to come back to Washington, D.C., to vote on the bill. The deadline to raise the debt ceiling is June 1, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

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The negotiators maintain that while they have made progress on a number of different negotiating items, they’re still far apart on some main matters, including spending and work requirements.

“I am worried about the consequences of us not coming to terms and raising the debt ceiling,” McHenry told reporters Thursday morning. “These are thorny issues that have to be resolved with serious consequences for people. And then, we also need to make sure that we have a bill that can work its way through the legislative process.”

McHenry said he doesn’t think a deal will come Thursday night and wouldn’t expand on how close they are to a deal. He said he’s “not a pessimist at the moment,” which is movement from where he has been throughout these negotiations.

But as the negotiations continue and the parties get closer, there is more resistance to a possible deal from the Republican Conference’s more conservative members.

Republican Priorities

On Thursday, the House Freedom Caucus sent a letter to McCarthy asking him to ensure a list of Republican priorities are in whatever compromise they come to in order to keep “Republican unity.”

Those five priorities the caucus asked to be included in the bill were:

• Border security measures
• Ending funding for the FBI’s new headquarters
• Requiring Yellen to release her data and methodology of how she came to the June 1 deadline to raise the debt ceiling
• Clawing back unspent COVID relief funds
• Repealing the funding for the 87,000 new IRS agents

“We’re not gonna budge on any one of them,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who also released his own set of demands on Wednesday. “What I’m saying is, that’s what I want. … I’m not going to negotiate one piece at a time. Would I give up one thing to get something else? Sure.”

Roy said he applauds McHenry and Graves for negotiating but urged them to “hold the line” and not take the exit ramp “five exits too early.” He said he is willing to go past the June 1 deadline to ensure the bill that comes out of the negotiations contains policies the entire Republican Conference can get behind.

Some Republican members speculate the reason they are letting members go home for recess is so they can announce a deal while everyone is gone, so it would be harder for them to talk negatively about the deal in the media.

“My guess is you’re gonna hear after Thursday that there’s gonna be a deal after everybody leaves,” one GOP member said. “Because if you do it earlier, [the media] is gonna be talking to everyone on their way out.”

But the negotiators said the reason they’re letting everyone go home is that it’s pointless to keep them up here when there isn’t a deal. Once they come to a deal, they have to draft the bill, and they can’t vote on it until 72 hours after it’s filed. This means the earliest they could vote on any deal is Sunday if they were to come to an agreement and file the bill Thursday. So once the timeline is clearer on when they can vote, they will bring the members back.

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