House GOP leaves Washington with a debt win — but not quite a breakthrough

House Republicans left Washington on Friday for a week feeling elated about their massive debt bill they muscled through despite the thinnest of narrow margins. Just don’t call it a breakthrough.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s fiscal standoff with President Joe Biden remains as deadlocked as ever, with the GOP demanding steep spending cuts in exchange for lifting the nation’s borrowing limit to stop a dangerous debt default. And that impasse might not ease until one or both parties start feeling more pressure to bend as Congress veers closer to the edge of fiscal calamity later this spring.

“This is one of those things where you have to get really, uncomfortably close — unfortunately — to the deadline before people really roll up their spikes and decide they’re going to start to move in their position,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said.