Harvey-debt limit opposition

White House moves to quell Harvey-debt limit opposition

By RACHAEL BADE, JOSH DAWSEY and KYLE CHENEY

President Donald Trump’s White House will move Wednesday to quash growing GOP opposition to a strategy to raise the debt ceiling as part of a Hurricane Harvey relief package, according to multiple House and White House officials.

Administration officials will inform lawmakers that they will not be able to pay FEMA disaster claims for victims without a simultaneous increase of the debt ceiling, the sources said. House lawmakers are also being told by GOP leaders that Trump will give a full-throated endorsement to their plan to pair the two bills and send them to the Oval Office this week — without a penny worth of spending cuts long demanded by conservatives and even Republican leadership allies.

It’s anyone’s guess what Trump will actually say or tweet. But one senior Republican close to leaders said he was told to expect Trump to make his case clear either on social media or through a statement over the next 24 hours.

Such a message from the president himself could change the dynamic for Hill Republicans and save GOP leaders getting pummeled by critics. Conservatives and Texas Republicans for days have squawked about pairing the two issues, as they want to back emergency funding but vote against increasing the nation’s nearly $20 billion borrowing authority.

But there are signs that such an argument — that Harvey help is entirely contingent on a debt limit increase — could be a game-changer for some.

Texas Republican Rep. Jodey Arrington last Friday, for instance, called on leadership to decouple the Harvey and debt ceiling bills. But on Tuesday night, after hearing rumors that Harvey payouts may be held up without a debt hike, Arrington had a change of heart.

“If the only way to get my brothers and sisters in Texas the funding that they need, if the only way to do that is to raise the debt ceiling, then I would be forced to do that,” he said, though he wasn’t happy about it, preferring a debt increase with spending cuts. “I’m not going to play politics with the money.”

The White House has some convincing to do. Multiple members of the Freedom Caucus warned that they’re unlikely to back such a package unless it includes significant fiscal reforms as they exited their weekly meeting late Tuesday night.

“It was overwhelming in terms of the opposition to attaching the debt ceiling — a clean debt ceiling — to the Harvey relief,” said Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who is close with Trump and hails from a district that strongly backs the president.

In the Senate, Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has also vowed to drag out the vote as long as possible, which could potentially force Congress to work through the weekend on the package.

Opposition isn’t limited to the typical rabble-rousing conservatives either. Members of Speaker Paul Ryan’s deputy whip team let out an audible groan of resistance during a Tuesday night meeting when leadership told them of their strategy, according to one source in the room. Another House Republican source said the uneasiness with the debt limit-Harvey plan has been palpable and created an uncomfortable feeling amongst members who campaigned to cut, not raise, the national debt.

All the same time, Texas Republicans — who have seen the damage up close and comprise one of the biggest and arguably most powerful voting blocks in the House — have also shown that they’re going to put up a fight.

Indeed, three members of the delegation on the leadership whip team exited the Tuesday strategy session vocalizing their opposition: Rep. Blake Farenthold said, "I think the debt ceiling is an important enough issue that it deserves its own debate free of the disaster bill.” Rep. Roger Williams said “the idea of combining it with hurricane relief is the wrong thing to do.” And Rep. Joe Barton argued the debt ceiling is a totally different matter entirely — one that demanded offsets: “I don’t know how many years you can just keep raising the debt ceiling with no structural reform.”

All that could change Wednesday, when Trump huddles with Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). It is unclear whether leaders will give a public statement after the meeting.

FEMA’s emergency fund, meanwhile, will continue to drain. FEMA officials on Tuesday told lawmakers that they would run out of cash entirely as early as Friday.

But infusing the agency with new funds is speeding up the debt ceiling deadline quickly, Trump administration officials said over the weekend. The White House will take that a step further Wednesday by telling members that if they do not tie the debt ceiling to Harvey relief, money for victims could be slowed. They want lawmakers to pass both in tandem — and quickly.

Not everyone believes the argument. Meadows voiced skepticism late Tuesday about concerns that the federal government might be unable to make payments for Harvey relief unless the debt ceiling is lifted.

“We’ll be glad to give him enough relief on debt ceiling to make the Harvey payments,” Meadows told reporters. “If it’s making the Harvey payments, I don’t know why you would have to increase our debt by $2 trillion in order to make a $15 billion payment.”

Instead, the group voted Tuesday to back a plan offered by its vice chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), that would link future debt ceiling increases to a percentage of the GDP.