There are 4 Dems on this House Committee. They are all members of the Progressive Caucus .
Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-MA)
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA)
Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO)
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández(D-NM)
Now, as I said before, the Progressives object to negotiating with the Republicans and cutting some of their preferred programs.
She cited the bill's welfare work requirements and energy permitting reforms as examples of provisions progressives are displeased with.
"There will be real harmful impacts for poor people and working people," she said, adding that members have “serious concerns about the environmental justice implications of this bill."
But it might be even more instructive to see what the lead Dem Committee member, McGovern had to say:
WASHINGTON—Today, Congressman James P. McGovern, Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee, slammed the GOP for lying about SNAP work requirements during the Republican debt crisis negotiations so they can go after food assistance programs that working families rely on.
“Maybe if [Speaker Kevin McCarthy] weren’t so busy giving speeches to Wall Street bankers, he’d know most people on food assistance are children, seniors, or people with disabilities,” said Congressman McGovern on the House Floor. “Maybe if he spoke to an able-bodied adult on food assistance, he’d know they aren’t sitting on the couch because they’re out working—they just make so little they qualify for a measly six-dollar-a-day benefit they use to buy food.
Now, unlike the other answer, I believe they are playing with fire wrt public opinion. In the past government shutdowns, the Reps have generally loaded the gun and pulled the trigger. I.e. they manufactured the crisis and were too intransigent to avoid a shutdown. For which they got blamed by Jane Public.
This time the Reps have loaded the gun, but if the deal goes South due to the Progressives, they will have pulled the trigger, not the Republicans.
The public, once it wakes up to another government shutdown, will look to who was the last group involved. Not negotiating, as Biden started out to do? The Dems. Scuppering it, via the behavior asked about in this Q? The Dems.
Some observations:
The US debt ceiling is, as it exists, a pretty silly system. The time to worry about debt is when you pass a budget.
2/3 of Fed expenditures are entitlement, by law: pensions, Medicare/aid. Off-budget, essentially. Of the rest 1/6 is Defense, 1/6 non-Defense, things like education and welfare.
So the Reps, after never cutting spending, but cutting taxes (Trump 2017, heavily warned by CBO as a deficit bomb) act as if they had nothing to with it, want to ring-fence Defense and want to concentrate all the cuts on the remaining 1/6th.
Nevertheless the US is living above its means and needs to get a grip. Supposedly the unhappy compromise here is rated $1.5T by CBO. A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real money.
Most of the estimated reduction in the deficit from the deal would come from caps on discretionary spending other than defense — a relatively small slice of the overall federal budget
The agreement adds new work requirements for older people receiving food stamps, but also adds new exemptions from work requirements for veterans, people experiencing homelessness and young people recently out of foster care.
CBO projects the number of people made eligible for food stamps by the new exemptions would outweigh the number who might be dropped from the rolls.
Still, among the dumb, Rep-insisted things in that compromise:
A plan to cut $1.4 billion in spending on the Internal Revenue Service, for example, would reduce tax collections by an estimated $2.3 billion — for a net loss to the government of $900 million.
The actual loss in tax revenue could be much larger, since the Biden administration is planning to "repurpose" another $20 billion of the $80 billion that had been set aside for the IRS as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
If I understand correctly, this cut will allow safer tax evasion for tax shirkers.
So, no, not a great compromise and, no not driven by sane budgeting either. But still an irresponsible move by the Progressive members, albeit for much nobler reasons than the Freedom Caucus on the even more daft opposite side.
Apparently the thought of the more mainstream folk as well:
The House voted to pass Speaker Kevin McCarthy's debt ceiling deal with President Joe Biden tonight on a 314-117 vote.
CNN
The final tally for the vote was 314 to 117. There were 149 Republicans and 165 Democrats who voted for the bill and 71 Republicans and 46 Democrats who voted against it.
Suspending the debt limit through 2025 takes the threat of default off table until after the presidential election. In addition to addressing the debt limit, the bill caps non-defense spending, expands work requirements for some food stamp recipients and claws back some Covid-19 relief funds, among other policy provisions.
p.s. In addition to all that, this rejection by some members of his own party makes Biden look weak. They'd be better served working behind the scenes trying to convince him to let someone else run in 2024.
