WASHINGTON, May 31 (Reuters) - Kevin McCarthy earned his stripes as Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, navigating fierce hardline opposition to pass a debt ceiling bill containing federal spending limits that President Joe Biden for months vowed to resist.
Six months after he endured 15 humiliating floor votes just to be elected speaker, McCarthy proved capable of dragging Biden into negotiations over spending and other Republican priorities, and then marshalling two-thirds of his often fractious House Republican majority to enact bipartisan legislation.
"It's not how you start, it's how you finish," McCarthy told reporters after the vote, repeating one of his comments from the January night he was finally confirmed as speaker. The House approved by a 314-117 margin the bill, which lifts the government's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in exchange for cutting non-defense discretionary spending and stiffening work requirements in assistance programs.
Yet it was a bruising victory for McCarthy. The bill gained 165 votes from Democrats, outnumbering the 149 from members of McCarthy's own Republican party.
The bill now goes to the narrowly Democratic-controlled Senate, which must enact it and get it to Biden's desk by June 5 to avoid a crippling U.S. default.
Republican Representative Dusty Johnson, a McCarthy ally who helped craft the Republican debt-ceiling legislation that buttressed the speaker in negotiations, said the vote proved wrong Democratic predications that the 58-year-old Californian would have little chance of holding his caucus together.
"They said he would never become speaker, and of course they were wrong. They said he would never be able to manage the floor effectively and we haven't had a single bill fail," Johnson said in an interview. "They said he wouldn't be able to cut a deal with the president, and they were wrong about that."
McCarthy has so far succeeded in passing the bill without drawing direct verbal attacks from former President Donald Trump, who urged Republicans to push for ...
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