Biden and McCarthy reach deal

Whether McCarthy can actually get the votes once this becomes a bill, who knows, but especially given the two-year extension it would certainly be better than defaulting:

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached an “agreement in principle” late Saturday as they raced to strike a deal to limit federal spending and resolve the looming debt crisis ahead of a June 5 deadline, the House speaker said.

A deal would avert a catastrophic U.S. default, but risks angering both Democratic and Republican sides with the concessions made to reach it.

The Democratic president and Republican speaker reached the agreement after the two spoke earlier Saturday evening by phone, said McCarthy, speaking Saturday night. The country and the world have been watching and waiting for a resolution to political standoff that threatened the U.S. and global economy.

With the outlines of a deal in place, the legislative package could be drafted and shared with lawmakers in time for votes early next week in the House and later in the Senate.

Central to the package is a two-year budget deal that would hold spending flat for 2024 and impose limits for 2025 in exchange for raising the debt limit for two years, pushing the volatile political issue past the next presidential election.

Negotiators agreed to some Republican demands for enhanced work requirements on recipients of food stamps that had sparked an uproar from House Democrats as a nonstarter.

Obviously, the better alternative would have been for the median votes in the Senate when Democrats still controlled the House to be responsible legislators who would have voted to eliminate the debt ceiling rather than narcissistic clowns, but here we are.