It looks like we may be closer to a debt deal.
Over the weekend, President Biden and House Speaker McCarthy reached a tentative agreement. While details are still emerging, we know there could be new limits on government spending and some cuts in red tape with energy projects.
When it comes to spending, the two sides agreed to keep overall non-defense spending at current levels going into 2024. By 2025, we could see a 1% increase in spending.
In addition, “The deal appears to provide modest changes to the National Environmental Policy Act, a 1970 law that allows the federal government to analyze environmental impacts of proposed projects. The aim is to streamline the government’s review process for energy projects in the years ahead but the full provisions – as well as other key details – have not yet been formally released,” as noted by Yahoo Finance.
One issue not fully addressed was the green energy tax credits. As also reported by Yahoo Finance, “Republicans wanted to repeal the credits that were a part of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act last year, claiming they were market distorting. President Biden touted Saturday how ‘the agreement protects my and Congressional Democrats’ key priorities and legislative accomplishments.’”
Student loans weren’t discussed in a great deal either. “Republicans had initially aimed to use the debt ceiling debt to cancel Biden’s effort to forgive the debt. But the GOP ended up backing down, knowing that there is ongoing litigation that could lead the Supreme Court to cancel the effort in the months ahead anyway.”
Now, we just have to wait and see if both sides of the aisle agree with all of this. If so, we can put the issue to rest for a bit, which would finally clear up a good deal of uncertainty.
