By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – May 31, 2023

Some conservatives are grousing that the debt-ceiling bill negotiated by Speaker Kevin McCarthy has left President Biden’s legislation of the last two years largely intact. That’s undeniable, but we also wonder what political planet these folks are occupying.

Members of the House Freedom Caucus and 71 Republicans in total voted against the bill that passed overwhelmingly late Wednesday. Heritage Action and other parts of the Beltway conservative establishment were also urging a “no” vote. They say the bill doesn’t reduce the current federal debt, doesn’t cut enough spending, doesn’t repeal green subsidies, and doesn’t even repeal the $80 billion in new money for the Internal Revenue Service.

All of that is true, and they have every right to gripe about it. But what did they expect? House Republicans hold a four-vote majority, the smallest in decades. Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. In no plausible political universe could Republicans expect to roll back the legislation that Democrats passed with control of both sides of Pennsylvania Ave. in the last Congress.

In this divided government, there was always going to be a debt-limit compromise. There had to be lest the government default. That’s the way it has always been.

The claim is that Mr. McCarthy could have held out for more. But brinkmanship isn’t risk-free, and cutting it closer to the default-day deadline risked taking responsibility for a downgrade in the U.S. credit rating or a partial government shutdown. Mr. Biden would have been blamed, but so would House Republicans. Mr. McCarthy had to make a judgment call about the policy victories he had pocketed in the talks and the political risks he might run if he held out for more.

As it is, he won some significant concessions, as . Domestic discretionary spending authority in the deal will be $112 billion below the Congressional Budget Office baseline for fiscal 2024 and $136 billion below the baseline for fiscal 2025. Republicans also get better leverage to avoid being jammed with another giant omnibus spending bill this year. Defense spending for the next two years is inadequate in the deal, but the biggest critics on the right don’t object to defense cuts.

The dumbest argument is North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop’s that the deal is cause for deposing Mr. McCarthy, as if the Speaker is the obstacle to more conservative victories. Mr. Biden and the Democratic Senate are the obstacles. If Republicans wanted more victories on legislation this year, they should have won more election victories in the House and Senate last year.

If the debt deal fails in Congress, the next bill won’t move more to the right. It will move left, as Democrats demand more in return for their votes. And if Republicans mount a circular firing squad to depose Mr. McCarthy, they won’t end up with a more united conference for South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman’s causes. They’ll merely show the country they can’t govern.

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Source: A Republican Reality Check on McCarthy’s Debt-Ceiling Deal – WSJ