WASHINGTON — The Democratic-led Senate will hold hearings starting this week on legislation narrowly passed by the Republican-led House that would condition raising the debt limit on adopting steep spending cuts and rolling back several of President Biden’s priorities, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. said Monday.

In a letter to colleagues, Schumer said the aim of the hearings, to begin Thursday, will be “to expose the true impact of this reckless legislation on everyday Americans.”

The hearings will be the first concrete action the Senate has taken after weeks of verbal jabs directed at House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and his leadership team, who are engaged in a standoff with the White House over the debt ceiling – the legal limit on how much money the country can borrow to pay its bills. President Biden is insisting Congress pass a bill raising the limit with no conditions, as it did three times during the administration of his Republican predecessor.

Separately Monday, Biden is planning to use an event marking National Small Business Week to highlight the negative effect that he says the House Republican plan could have on federal programs aiding small businesses.

Schumer wrote that House passage of the McCarthy-backed bill “offers two choices: either default on the debt or default on America, forcing steep cuts to law enforcement, veterans, families, teachers.”

“Democrats will not allow it,” Schumer said in the letter, first reported by Punchbowl News.

Without action by Congress, the nation could default on its debt as soon as six weeks from now.

Schumer is hoping the hearings will not only enlighten the public but also change the dynamic in his chamber. Under Senate rules, he would need 60 votes to advance a clean bill raising the debt limit without conditions – and it does not appear he has the requisite Republican votes to do that at this point.

The House Republican proposal, dubbed the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, would raise the borrowing limit into next year – either until the government incurs another $1.5 trillion in arrears, or through the end of March 2024, whichever occurs first.

Republicans coupled the increase with aggressive caps on federal spending, rolling back the budgets for key agencies to the levels adopted in the 2022 fiscal year and then limiting future growth to 1 percent annually for the following decade.

In total, these and other cuts are expected to save the government roughly $4.8 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Republicans have promised to focus those cuts on federal health care, education, science and labor programs, while sparing the military.

While the cuts are not specified – they would be determined later during the appropriations process – Democrats have done analyses projecting how deep the cuts would need to be.

In his letter, Schumer predicted that, if enacted, the GOP bill would “gut Medicaid for over 20 million Americans,” terminate food assistance for more than 1 million people and eliminate Pell grants for tens of thousands of college students per year.

The House bill, which Schumer referred to as the “Default on America Act,” also would repeal several of Biden’s recent accomplishments, including a bevy of tax credits meant to spur the adoption of electric vehicles and other clean technologies.

It would end the president’s plan to waive up to $10,000 from millions of borrowers’ student loan debts. It would limit the power of federal agencies to issue regulations on a wide array of industries.

And it would impose a raft of new rules on low-income families that receive federal benefits, including food stamps and Medicaid, requiring them to work longer hours in exchange for help–or risk losing aid entirely.

Biden on Monday is hosting small business award winners from all 50 states in the Rose Garden of the White House. In his latest attempt to highlight the negative consequences of the GOP bill, he plans to use the event to note several programs that would be slashed.

According to a White House analysis shared Monday, the casualties would include $2 billion from what it described as “a vital small business initiative,” effectively taking away capital for up to 10,000 small businesses and support for 100,000 jobs.

The House bill has no chance of passing in the Democratic-led Senate, and Biden has threatened to veto it if it reaches his desk.

 

The Washington Post’s Tony Romm contributed to this report.

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