House Freedom Caucus leaves open possibility of filing a motion to vacate the chair if Speaker McCarthy pushes through the debt deal

Debt ceiling bill faces a tough path in the House as GOP opposition grows

WASHINGTON — The compromise bill to raise the debt ceiling that House Republicans released on Sunday faces its first major test Tuesday in the House Rules Committee, where two of the panel’s nine Republicans have already signaled they will oppose bringing it to the House floor for a vote.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act is the product of a deal hammered out by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden to cap federal baseline spending for two years in exchange for Republican votes to raise the debt ceiling beyond next year’s elections and into 2025.

The bill needs to pass the GOP-majority House and the Democratic-controlled Senate before June 5, when the Treasury Department projects the United States would be unlikely to have enough money to meet its debt obligations.

But a bloc of at least 20 conservative Republicans rejected the compromise deal Tuesday. They accused McCarthy of caving in to the White House in exchange for “cosmetic” policy tweaks, and not the transformative change they were promised.

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