What a difference a few months makes.

Back in early January, the 118th Congress was being sworn in and Kevin McCarthy was being pilloried. Try as he might, the California congressman couldn’t garner enough votes to become House speaker, and he’d thus become a laughingstock. Not only was McCarthy the symbol of Republican incompetence, he was also the subject of Democrat hand-wringing and mainstream media giddiness.

All the while, though, McCarthy was counting votes and making steady progress, and we noted that the GOP’s internal struggle was ultimately an exercise in freedom — an exercise that made the party stronger and more unified for having gotten through it.

And then, rather than taking a victory lap, McCarthy got to work. He made good on his promise to boot California Democrats Adam “Shifty” Schiff and Eric “The Spy Who Shagged Me” Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee and to release the entirety of the January 6 video footage that Nancy Pelosi had been keeping under lock and key.

So … who’s laughing now?

More recently, McCarthy has been engaged in debt ceiling non-negotiations with Joe Biden. And to be clear, they’re non-negotiations only because Biden has refused to negotiate, instead insisting on a “clean” bill that simply raises the debt ceiling and green-lights his efforts to bankrupt our debt-ridden nation.

Then, on Wednesday, after a late night of internal deliberations that bled into early morning, House Republicans passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, which proposes to raise the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit in exchange for considerable cuts in planned government spending growth. The vote was 217-215, with all Democrats opposing along with four Republicans.

The Wall Street Journal has the specifics: “The legislation caps annual growth in discretionary spending at 1% a year, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates would reduce deficits by $3.2 trillion over the next decade. That’s out of more than $60 trillion in expected spending, so it’s hardly austere.”

The bill also includes modest work requirements for able-bodied adults who draw benefits from Medicaid, food stamps, and other welfare programs. McCarthy also had to make some concessions, though— mostly to appease Corn Belt Republicans who want to keep their tax credits for inefficient ethanol and other boondoggle biofuels.

Still, this represents a big win for McCarthy, who managed to hold his razor-thin majority together and pass a bill, and who now puts the onus on Biden. As The Spectator’s Ben Domenech writes:

What McCarthy achieved by bringing Chip Roy, Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene to his side in his fight for leadership was that these would-be bomb-throwers are now invested in his success. This deal has to work out, for everyone’s interest to be served. And a debt-ceiling win with a message vote that challenges the Biden administration’s spending without risking default is a major step in that direction.

As McCarthy said yesterday: “85 days ago I sat down with President Biden to raise the issue of how to avoid defaulting on our national debt. The House did the right thing and passed a bill to responsibly lift the debt ceiling. The President can no longer ignore our debt crisis — time for him to do his job.”

Indeed, it is time for The Unity President to do his job. But at this point, he still seems unwilling, still seems to think he’s got a winning hand. “I’m happy to meet with McCarthy,” he said, “but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended. That’s not negotiable.”

So there you have it. Let’s see who blinks.