McCarthy passes his debt limit bill, but the path to averting default is deeply uncertain

Speaker Kevin McCarthy passed his debt ceiling bill through the House on Wednesday by a wafer-thin vote of 217 to 215, with Democrats unifying to vote against it.

But passing the bill may have deepened the impasse and made the path to averting a disastrous U.S. default even murkier.

The Democratic-controlled Senate has promised to throw McCarthy's bill in the trash, vowing not to negotiate over paying the country’s bills. President Joe Biden has threatened to veto it. But House Republicans will now be less inclined to grant a no-strings-attached debt limit hike after they secured the votes to make an opening bid that would cut spending and roll back key parts of Biden's agenda.

“Now he should sit down and negotiate,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said Wednesday, putting the onus on Biden. “We are the only party to take fiscal action ... that would lift the debt limit so we wouldn’t have economic damage.”