(Bloomberg) -- The House of Representatives will vote Wednesday on a Hurricane Harvey relief bill that won't contain language aimed at staving off a U.S default on its debt.
Republican leaders for now are bowing to the demands of their most conservative members and won't combine legislation raising the U.S. debt ceiling with Harvey aid, a House Republican aide said Monday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday that the two issues should be combined. Mnuchin has said the debt limit must be raised by Sept. 29 in order to avoid a market-shaking default.
The House Appropriations Committee on Sunday released the text of the Harvey bill, which would provide $7.4 billion to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund and $450 million to the Small Business Administration without cutting spending elsewhere in the budget. The bill's spending levels match a Friday request from the White House.
The Senate could add a debt-ceiling increase to the bill once it arrives from the House. That would mean the House would need to vote again on the changed bill before it could be sent to the White House for President Donald Trump's signature.
A top House conservative said Monday he would oppose any effort to use the Harvey aid bill to raise the debt ceiling.
Kicking the Can
“As we have stated for months, the debt ceiling should be paired with significant fiscal and structural reforms,” Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker of North Carolina said in a statement. “If we resort to just kicking the can down the road on the debt, it only shows that Republicans do not take the problem of our $20 trillion debt seriously.”
Mark Meadows, the head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, issued a similar warning in interviews last week. The Freedom Caucus will meet late Tuesday to discuss its debt-ceiling strategy, according to spokeswoman Alyssa Farah.
Congress could have another chance to use a popular Harvey aid package to raise the debt ceiling later in the month. President Trump has asked that a stopgap spending bill needed to keep the government open after Oct. 1 allow FEMA to immediately access $6.7 billion available in the 2018 fiscal year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Alex Wayne, Tony Robinson
Essential Business Intelligence, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice, Daily Fuel, Gold and Silver Prices and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.
