'The votes may not be there': House Republican says speaker’s debt ceiling bill in danger of collapsing

25 April 2023

United States Representative Steve Womack (R-Arkansas) admitted to MSNBC on Tuesday that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) could fall a few votes shy of passing his bill to raise the Treasury Department's borrowing limit and avert an unprecedented, economically disastrous default on the national debt.

"Congressman, just to be very clear, and again, as I laid out at the top, he can only afford four GOP defectors. You are saying right now it's just not clear that the votes are there at this present point," host Kristen Welker noted.

Womack confirmed that this is the case.

"Well, I would say as you and I are talking, the votes may not be there. Uh, I am not privy to what those discussions are.
I know the speaker was meeting with the Iowa Republicans today. I know that there have been other communications with people that have some different thoughts about different pieces of it, and whenever you propose, um, you know, the, the number and type of issues that we think should be addressed," Womack said.

He listed a number of programs that are geared toward helping average Americans stay financially afloat that are potentially on the chopping block in McCarthy's controversial proposal.

"Whether it's capping spending, or whether we should claw back unspent COVID funds, uh, as I said, green, uh, Green New Deal subsidies that are involved in this, um, you know, student loan repayments, those are the, the, the areas that we are dealing with right now that have come from the four corners of our conference," the lawmaker continued. "And that's what Kevin is trying to do. He's trying to put together a package that we can rally behind and get us to the negotiating table, knowing, as you said, knowing that what we're gonna get in return is gonna look different than what we send over. But the first thing we have to do is find 218 for this."

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