“We’re finally bending the curve on discretionary spending because of this bill, and we’re doing it while at the same time raising our national defense and our veterans fully funded, with Social Security and Medicare preserved,” Mr. McCarthy said in a speech on the House floor, adding, “That is a major victory.”
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, described the deal as a vital step and thanked Democrats for their “efforts to make sure that we push back the extreme MAGA Republican efforts to jam right-wing cuts down the throats of the American people.”
“From the very beginning, House Democrats were clear that we would not allow extreme MAGA Republicans to default on our debt, crash the economy or trigger a job-killing recession,” Mr. Jeffries said. “Under the leadership of President Joe Biden, Democrats kept our promise.”
Mr. Biden lauded the bill’s passage as a “critical step forward to prevent a first-ever default.”
“This budget agreement is a bipartisan compromise,” Mr. Biden, who called congressional leaders after the vote, said in a statement. “Neither side got everything it wanted.”
Not long after the bill passed the House, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, moved to speed it to the floor in that chamber, where it was expected to get quick consideration. Mr. Schumer warned earlier in the day that senators would need to approve the bill without changes to meet the June 5 deadline when the Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen has said the government would default without action by Congress.
“I cannot stress enough that we have no margin for error,” he said. “Either we proceed quickly and send this bipartisan agreement to the president’s desk or the federal government will default for the first time ever.”
The vote on Wednesday was a major victory for Mr. McCarthy, the California Republican, who faced a vast challenge in shepherding a debt ceiling increase through a narrowly divided chamber populated by Republicans who have long refused to raise the borrowing limit. Few had expected that Mr. McCarthy would be able to unite his fractious conference around any such measure, much less one negotiated with Mr. Biden, without prompting an attempt by his right flank to oust him.