Schumer touts debt ceiling deal as win for New York

New York dodged a big financial bullet thanks to the recently passed debt ceiling deal, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday.

He echoed Friday comments from President Biden, who cast the deal as a “crisis averted” even as some fellow Democrats lamented spending restrictions contained in legislation to suspend the country’s debt limit through 2025.

Schumer emphasized that the final deal included far smaller cuts than House Republicans initially sought, especially ones affecting New York.

“New Yorkers can breathe a sigh of relief because the Senate majority killed the original MAGA House plan that would have been a dagger to the heart of New York,” Schumer said at a press conference. “That plan would have killed New York. We should never see the likes of it again.”

Nearly $1 billion in spending cuts for New York City mass transit were among the Republican proposals that didn’t make it into the final legislation, Schumer said.

A $3.4 billion proposed cut to nationwide rental assistance and other federal housing programs was also nixed, according to the senator. Same for a $2.2 billion cut to medical care for military veterans, millions of dollars in appropriations for local cops and firefighters and more, the New York Democrat added.

“The original bill was in many ways a MAGA bull’s eye aimed at New York, and thank God we were able to get rid of these provisions,” Schumer said.

Biden signed the final legislation into law on Saturday, days before the U.S. would have effectively run out of cash to pay its bills and potentially create a global economic disaster.

Under the deal, all non-defense spending stays roughly flat in fiscal year 2024 and goes up just 1% the following year. Work requirements for food stamp eligibility were expanded, a key Republican demand. There were also funding cuts to the IRS.

The deal left pols to the far left and right of the political spectrum angry — a healthy sign, Biden suggested in a Friday night address from the Oval Office.

“No one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed,” he said. “We averted an economic crisis and an economic collapse.”

Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus had sought steep budget cuts in exchange for suspending the debt ceiling.

“We failed, honestly,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a Freedom Caucus member, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “It is a bill that not only avoided a default, but also locked in the progressive gains that the president made in the last two years.”

But progressives were left fuming through the weekend.

“It’s important that progressives show poor & working people that we are fighting for them in Congress,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, tweeted Saturday.

“The debt ceiling deal was a bad bill that included provisions to kick people off of SNAP and harm the environment, and we weren’t willing to accept that.”

The months-long debt-ceiling fight was seen as a key early test of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) leadership. He cast the deal as a conservative win.

“There are no [new] taxes, there’s no new government programs,” he told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “It’s not perfect, but it is a beginning of turning the ship.”

With News Wire Services