The White House and House Republican negotiators reached an agreement in principle Saturday night that would raise the debt limit and avert potential global economic fallout.
But some lawmakers, like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), are worried there won’t be enough votes to get the bill through Congress.
“My worry is, there may still not be enough Republicans in the House to get this deal done,” Murphy said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”
There is a “a whole big swath of the Republican Party,” who Murphy said he believes actually wants to see the U.S. default — an event that would put tens of billions of dollars in Social Security benefits, federal salaries, payments to Medicaid providers and veterans’ benefits at risk. It also would rock global markets.
The agreement announced Saturday is not yet a sure thing. Any bill will have to be passed by both chambers of Congress before heading back to Biden’s desk, and to prevent default it all has to happen fast — before June 5, when the government is expected to no longer be able to pay its debts.
On Sunday, Murphy voiced concern about the speed with which members of Congress will be able to send the final deal back to the president.
“It’s going to take at least three to four days for this to get to the House of Representatives and then it could take as long as a week if Republicans use all of the procedural tactics at their disposal. That of course would result in a default on American debt. … something that we would never recover from,” Murphy said.
