rockin'robin
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Measure Now Moves On To Senate
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Republicans on Friday passed Speaker John Boehner's latest proposal to raise the federal debt ceiling and cut spending, overcoming opposition from Democrats and tea party conservatives.
The measure now goes to the Senate.
Boehner collected the votes of 218 of the chamber's 240 Republicans.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, has warned the bill is dead on arrival if it clears the House, and is planning to spend the weekend pushing what top Democrats insist is a more centrist piece of legislation.
For his part, President Barack Obama went before the cameras Friday morning to urge Senate Democrats and Republicans to take the lead in congressional talks.
The House plan "has no chance of becoming law," Obama said at the White House. "The time for putting party first is over. The time for compromise on behalf of the American people is now. ... It's important for everybody to step up and show the leadership that the American people expect."
And he warned: "We are almost out of time."
The president -- sleepless in recent nights due to the crisis, according to a senior administration official -- urged Americans to contact their members of Congress "to keep the pressure on Washington."
Phone lines on Capitol Hill were jammed as people from coast to coast tried to weigh in on the debate.
The increasingly frantic political maneuvering took place against the backdrop of a now imminent deadline to raise federal government's borrowing limit. If Congress fails to raise the current $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by August 2, Americans could face rising interest rates and a declining dollar, among other problems.
Some financial experts have warned of a downgrade of America's triple-A credit rating and a potential stock market plunge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped for a sixth straight day on Friday.
Without an increase in the debt limit, the federal government will not be able to pay all its bills next month. Obama recently indicated he can't guarantee Social Security checks will be mailed out on time.
Boehner, an Ohio Republican, spent most of the past two days trying to assuage unhappy tea party-backed conservatives who believe his proposal doesn't do enough to cut spending and reduce the size of the federal government. The speaker tried to make the plan more appealing to conservatives by including a provision requiring congressional passage of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution before the debt ceiling is extended through the end of 2012.
Failure to pass the bill would be a crippling setback for the speaker, who only assumed his post in January. In particular, it would prove Boehner unable to control the tea party conservatives elected in last year's GOP electoral tidal wave.
If Boehner's bill passes the House, Senate Democrats are expected to quickly defeat it Friday night. Reid is then expected to set the legislative gears in motion on his plan, though he will need to win over at least seven Senate Republicans to win the 60 votes necessary to overcome a certain filibuster.
"No matter how long Republicans delay, the deadline will not move," Reid said Friday morning. "We have hours -- I repeat, hours -- to act."
Reid criticized Boehner's decision to add a mandatory balanced budget amendment provision to the House plan, saying the addition of "even more stuff in this right-wing-leaning bill. ... It's really hard to comprehend."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, accused Boehner of "adding all kinds of unrealistic poison pills to his plan."
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, argued Senate Democrats were doing little to actually resolve the crisis.
"I would suggest to my friends on the other side ... that they start taking their responsibilities as a majority party a little more seriously, because at this point, the only people who are disregarding the consequences of default are Senate Democrats -- not the Republicans in the House -- but them," McConnell said.
Leaders of both parties now agree that any deal to raise the debt ceiling should include long-term spending reductions to help control spiraling deficits. But they differ sharply on both the nature and timetable of the cuts. One of the key sticking points is the GOP's insistence on a second vote to raise the debt ceiling before the 2012 election; Democrats call the demand a political nonstarter and economically destabilizing.
Despite the strong partisan rhetoric of recent weeks, there have been signs of a growing recognition of a need for further compromise. McConnell called earlier this week for renewed negotiations with Obama, and indicated that his party must be willing to move away from some of its demands.
Sources close to the negotiations have also told CNN that Vice President Joe Biden is very much in the mix of back-channel conversations on a possible fallback position.
White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley told CNN Thursday that, presuming the Boehner plan wins House approval and gets blocked in the Senate, the next step is for everyone "to take a step back in the Congress and look at where is a point of compromise."
Daley said that similarities between the Boehner and Reid plans "may be the grounds for a deal that, hopefully, both parties can pass."
Both plans suffered setbacks earlier this week when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released reports concluding that they fell short of their stated deficit reduction goals.
Boehner's plan, which has since been revised, proposes generating a total of $917 billion in savings while initially raising the debt ceiling by $900 billion. The speaker has pledged to match any debt ceiling hike with dollar-for-dollar spending cuts.
His plan requires two votes by Congress to raise the debt ceiling by a combined $2.5 trillion -- enough additional money to keep Washington funded through the end of next year. It would create a special congressional committee to recommend additional savings of $1.6 trillion or more.
Any failure on the part of Congress to enact mandated spending reductions or abide by new spending caps would trigger automatic across-the-board budget cuts.
The plan, as amended Friday, would require congressional passage of a balanced budget amendment before the second debt ceiling hike, which would likely be required at some point during the winter.
As for Reid's plan, it would reduce deficits over the next decade by $2.2 trillion. Democrats have promised that the final version of the plan will contain additional savings -- enough to match a debt ceiling hike of roughly $2.7 trillion through 2012.
Reid's plan would cut spending by $1.8 trillion, including $1 trillion in savings based on the planned U.S. withdrawals from military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Limiting future discretionary spending would save $751 billion, while an estimated $375 billion would be saved in interest payments due to reduced borrowing because of the spending cuts.
Reid's plan also would establish a congressional committee made up of 12 House and Senate members to consider additional options for debt reduction. The committee's proposals would be guaranteed by a Senate vote with no amendments by the end of the year.
Among other things, Reid has stressed that his plan meets the key GOP demand for no additional taxes. Boehner, however, argued this week that Reid's plan fails to tackle popular entitlement programs such as Medicare, which are among the biggest drivers of the debt.
A recent CNN/ORC International Poll reveals a growing public exasperation and demand for compromise. Sixty-four percent of respondents to a July 18-20 survey preferred a deal with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. Only 34% preferred a debt reduction plan based solely on spending reductions.
According to the poll, the public is sharply divided along partisan lines; Democrats and independents are open to a number of different approaches because they think a failure to raise the debt ceiling would cause a major crisis for the country. Republicans, however, draw the line at tax increases, and a narrow majority of them oppose raising the debt ceiling under any circumstances.
House Passes New GOP Debt Plan - Politics News Story - WJXT Jacksonville
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Republicans on Friday passed Speaker John Boehner's latest proposal to raise the federal debt ceiling and cut spending, overcoming opposition from Democrats and tea party conservatives.
The measure now goes to the Senate.
Boehner collected the votes of 218 of the chamber's 240 Republicans.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, has warned the bill is dead on arrival if it clears the House, and is planning to spend the weekend pushing what top Democrats insist is a more centrist piece of legislation.
For his part, President Barack Obama went before the cameras Friday morning to urge Senate Democrats and Republicans to take the lead in congressional talks.
The House plan "has no chance of becoming law," Obama said at the White House. "The time for putting party first is over. The time for compromise on behalf of the American people is now. ... It's important for everybody to step up and show the leadership that the American people expect."
And he warned: "We are almost out of time."
The president -- sleepless in recent nights due to the crisis, according to a senior administration official -- urged Americans to contact their members of Congress "to keep the pressure on Washington."
Phone lines on Capitol Hill were jammed as people from coast to coast tried to weigh in on the debate.
The increasingly frantic political maneuvering took place against the backdrop of a now imminent deadline to raise federal government's borrowing limit. If Congress fails to raise the current $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by August 2, Americans could face rising interest rates and a declining dollar, among other problems.
Some financial experts have warned of a downgrade of America's triple-A credit rating and a potential stock market plunge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped for a sixth straight day on Friday.
Without an increase in the debt limit, the federal government will not be able to pay all its bills next month. Obama recently indicated he can't guarantee Social Security checks will be mailed out on time.
Boehner, an Ohio Republican, spent most of the past two days trying to assuage unhappy tea party-backed conservatives who believe his proposal doesn't do enough to cut spending and reduce the size of the federal government. The speaker tried to make the plan more appealing to conservatives by including a provision requiring congressional passage of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution before the debt ceiling is extended through the end of 2012.
Failure to pass the bill would be a crippling setback for the speaker, who only assumed his post in January. In particular, it would prove Boehner unable to control the tea party conservatives elected in last year's GOP electoral tidal wave.
If Boehner's bill passes the House, Senate Democrats are expected to quickly defeat it Friday night. Reid is then expected to set the legislative gears in motion on his plan, though he will need to win over at least seven Senate Republicans to win the 60 votes necessary to overcome a certain filibuster.
"No matter how long Republicans delay, the deadline will not move," Reid said Friday morning. "We have hours -- I repeat, hours -- to act."
Reid criticized Boehner's decision to add a mandatory balanced budget amendment provision to the House plan, saying the addition of "even more stuff in this right-wing-leaning bill. ... It's really hard to comprehend."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, accused Boehner of "adding all kinds of unrealistic poison pills to his plan."
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, argued Senate Democrats were doing little to actually resolve the crisis.
"I would suggest to my friends on the other side ... that they start taking their responsibilities as a majority party a little more seriously, because at this point, the only people who are disregarding the consequences of default are Senate Democrats -- not the Republicans in the House -- but them," McConnell said.
Leaders of both parties now agree that any deal to raise the debt ceiling should include long-term spending reductions to help control spiraling deficits. But they differ sharply on both the nature and timetable of the cuts. One of the key sticking points is the GOP's insistence on a second vote to raise the debt ceiling before the 2012 election; Democrats call the demand a political nonstarter and economically destabilizing.
Despite the strong partisan rhetoric of recent weeks, there have been signs of a growing recognition of a need for further compromise. McConnell called earlier this week for renewed negotiations with Obama, and indicated that his party must be willing to move away from some of its demands.
Sources close to the negotiations have also told CNN that Vice President Joe Biden is very much in the mix of back-channel conversations on a possible fallback position.
White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley told CNN Thursday that, presuming the Boehner plan wins House approval and gets blocked in the Senate, the next step is for everyone "to take a step back in the Congress and look at where is a point of compromise."
Daley said that similarities between the Boehner and Reid plans "may be the grounds for a deal that, hopefully, both parties can pass."
Both plans suffered setbacks earlier this week when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released reports concluding that they fell short of their stated deficit reduction goals.
Boehner's plan, which has since been revised, proposes generating a total of $917 billion in savings while initially raising the debt ceiling by $900 billion. The speaker has pledged to match any debt ceiling hike with dollar-for-dollar spending cuts.
His plan requires two votes by Congress to raise the debt ceiling by a combined $2.5 trillion -- enough additional money to keep Washington funded through the end of next year. It would create a special congressional committee to recommend additional savings of $1.6 trillion or more.
Any failure on the part of Congress to enact mandated spending reductions or abide by new spending caps would trigger automatic across-the-board budget cuts.
The plan, as amended Friday, would require congressional passage of a balanced budget amendment before the second debt ceiling hike, which would likely be required at some point during the winter.
As for Reid's plan, it would reduce deficits over the next decade by $2.2 trillion. Democrats have promised that the final version of the plan will contain additional savings -- enough to match a debt ceiling hike of roughly $2.7 trillion through 2012.
Reid's plan would cut spending by $1.8 trillion, including $1 trillion in savings based on the planned U.S. withdrawals from military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Limiting future discretionary spending would save $751 billion, while an estimated $375 billion would be saved in interest payments due to reduced borrowing because of the spending cuts.
Reid's plan also would establish a congressional committee made up of 12 House and Senate members to consider additional options for debt reduction. The committee's proposals would be guaranteed by a Senate vote with no amendments by the end of the year.
Among other things, Reid has stressed that his plan meets the key GOP demand for no additional taxes. Boehner, however, argued this week that Reid's plan fails to tackle popular entitlement programs such as Medicare, which are among the biggest drivers of the debt.
A recent CNN/ORC International Poll reveals a growing public exasperation and demand for compromise. Sixty-four percent of respondents to a July 18-20 survey preferred a deal with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. Only 34% preferred a debt reduction plan based solely on spending reductions.
According to the poll, the public is sharply divided along partisan lines; Democrats and independents are open to a number of different approaches because they think a failure to raise the debt ceiling would cause a major crisis for the country. Republicans, however, draw the line at tax increases, and a narrow majority of them oppose raising the debt ceiling under any circumstances.
House Passes New GOP Debt Plan - Politics News Story - WJXT Jacksonville
