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House Rules Committee narrowly advances bill to raise debt ceiling despite GOP opposition

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The House Rules Committee narrowly advanced a bipartisan bill Tuesday to raise the federal debt ceiling to $31.4 trillion, despite Republican opposition.
The GOP-controlled committee voted 7-6 to move the 99-page piece of legislation to the House floor, with no Democrats joining Republicans in support.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) voted with Democrats on the panel against the measure, which would roughly add $4 trillion to the national debt.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a member of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus, voted in support of sending the bill to the House floor with six other Republicans.
“There are things to dislike and things to like about this bill,” Massie said Tuesday. “When people want to express their ideology, the floor of the House on the actual final passage of the bill is the place to do that.”
“This bill is smoke and mirrors,” Norman argued. “I get why the Democrats are voting for it … because they get pretty much what they want.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and President Biden have expressed confidence about the bill’s eventual passage, but Freedom Caucus Republicans in recent days threatened to derail the deal and imperil McCarthy’s speakership.
McCarthy was forced to appoint Massie, Roy and Norman to the panel in January as part of a concession to hardline members that let him eventually win the speaker’s gavel.

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