White House and Republican House negotiators reached a agreement in principle Saturday evening this would raise the debt ceiling and avoid possible global economic fallout.
But some lawmakers, like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), worry there won’t be enough votes to get the bill through Congress.
“My concern is that there may not be enough Republicans in the House yet to get this deal done,” Murphy said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”
There is a “whole big part of the Republican Party,” which Murphy says genuinely wants to see the default of the United States — an event that would put tens of billions of dollars in Social Security benefits, federal wages, payments to Medicaid providers, and benefits for at-risk veterans. It would also shake up global markets.
The agreement announced on Saturday is not yet acquired. Any bill will need to pass both houses of Congress before it returns to Biden’s desk, and to avoid any defaults, everything must happen quickly — before June 5, when the government is no longer expected to be in power. able to pay his debts.
On Sunday, Murphy expressed concern about how quickly members of Congress will be able to send the final deal back to the president.
“It will take at least three to four days for this to get to the House of Representatives, and then it could take up to a week if Republicans use every procedural tactic at their disposal. This would of course lead to a default on the US debt. … something we would never recover from,” Murphy said.