A deal McCarthy cut to become speaker could come back to haunt him in the debt debate – here’s why

Early indications suggest President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) have the numbers to pass their debt limit deal through Congress, but several procedural hurdles could torpedo the deal, one of which is the of the speaker’s own making, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday said the U.S. government would run out of money to pay its bills by June 5 unless Congress votes to extend the debt limit ceiling.

Terms of the deal between Biden and McCarthy include a two-year extension of the debt limit and an agreement to cut most domestic programs while increasing military spending by around 3 percent.

The deal has angered both parties' progressive and conservative winds but is expected to enjoy bipartisan support.

But the bill will need to clear some procedural chokepoints that could complicate efforts to resolve the debt limit debate, the report said.

Sabrina Siddiqui, Lindsay Wise and Andrew Duehren write for The WSJ, "In both chambers, vocal opponents of the bill could slow its passage, threatening to derail the effort to avoid an unprecedented U.S. default. Some conservatives in the House and Senate have said they would oppose the deal because it doesn’t go far enough to limit federal spending, while some progressives charge that the spending curbs are too steep.”

Among the toughest procedural checkpoints the debt limit deal is facing is the little-known House Rules Committee, where three far-right Republicans sit as a result of a deal McCarthy made with his party’s ultraconservative wing to win the speakership.

Two of those members, Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Ralph Norman (R-SC) have already said they plan to oppose the deal, and Roy on Monday suggested that the deal may never make it out of the committee.

The far-right congressman claims McCarthy promised him during his speakership vote that the Rules Committee would only advance measures supported unanimously by the committee’s nine Republican members.

“A reminder that during Speaker negotiations to build the coalition, that it was explicit both that nothing would pass Rules Committee without AT LEAST 7 GOP votes - AND that the Committee would not allow reporting out rules without unanimous Republican votes,” Roy tweeted.

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