NC Republicans McHenry, Bishop go head-to-head on debt ceiling bill

Republican U.S. Reps. Patrick McHenry and Dan Bishop have opposing views of a bill meant to save the U.S. from defaulting on its debts, which economists say would almost certainly cause economic catastrophe.

McHenry, from Lincoln County, was confident Wednesday night that the bill he sponsored to extend the debt ceiling through Jan. 1, 2025, would pass.

But Bishop, who is from Charlotte and is McHenry’s neighbor to the south, worked to ensure that didn’t happen.

The bill ultimately passed the House with a 314-117 vote.

Thirteen of 14 members of the North Carolina delegation approved the bill, though Rep. Deborah Ross was absent due to illness. Bishop was the only North Carolina member to oppose the bill.

“This is what it looks like when the uniparty cartel sells out the American people. #NoDeal,” Bishop tweeted shortly after the vote.

The bill now moves to the Senate, which expects to take it up as early as Thursday.

For weeks, McHenry was part of negotiations with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Garret Graves, a Republican from Louisiana, and the Biden administration to come up with a bill to extend the debt ceiling through Jan. 1, 2025. Without a bill, the U.S. will breach its debts on June 5, for the first time in the country’s history.

But on Saturday, when McCarthy and President Joe Biden announced they had reached an agreement and a bill would be released the following day, Bishop immediately took to Twitter to oppose the bill.

House Republicans met Saturday night to go over what the bill would include. The House Freedom Caucus, the far-right faction of Republican representatives, learned that many of their requests for the bill went unfulfilled.

By Tuesday, Bishop was calling the bill a “betrayal” by McCarthy and McHenry. He went as far as suggesting McCarthy be removed from his role as House speaker.

“I think it’s wrongheaded,” McHenry said Wednesday. “I’m disappointed in his statements, but the fact is we have a negotiated outcome. His goals and my goals are the same.”

Among those, McHenry said, are more fiscal restraint and preventing the country from going bankrupt.

He added that no matter what, debt was going to happen, but the bill adds conservative reform and fiscal restraint.

“What I believe is that this bill will make things better, not worse,” McHenry said. “And I think it’s a worthy bill to support because it’s better than doing nothing.”