Lawmakers made no obvious progress in reaching a deal to raise the nation’s $14.3 debt ceiling Tuesday, with competing Democratic and Republican plans lacking enough votes to pass Congress. The day after President Obama made an impassioned call for compromise in a televised address, the White House said he will veto legislation put forward by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that would raise the debt ceiling in two installments, each requiring spending cuts in excess of the amount the borrowing limit is raised.
And a bill written by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to cut spending by $2.7 trillion in exchange for a long-term, $2.4 trillion debt limit increase appeared to lack the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate, much less survive a House vote.
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GOP leaders in the House were scrambling to increase the amount of cuts in their bill after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the plan saved about $840 billion over 10 years, not the $1.2 trillion promised by Boehner.
Republican aides confirmed to The Washington Examiner late Tuesday that the bill will include additional cuts in response to the CBO analysis.
But even with the extra cuts, Boehner is struggling to come up with the 218 votes needed to pass his plan through the House and has not scheduled a vote on the measure.
Much of the opposition to the plan comes from the GOP’s far right flank, the bulk of whom are freshmen elected on the Tea Party platform.
The fiscally conservative Republican Study Committee, made up of more than 100 members led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is opposed to the plan because it does not cut enough spending and does not mandate passage of a balanced budget amendment as a condition for a debt ceiling increase. Jordan told reporters Tuesday there are not 218 votes to pass the plan.
Boehner and other GOP leaders are struggling to persuade members of this group to back the plan, saying that if they do not, they will be stuck with the Reid plan, or worse, will be held responsible for the nation potentially defaulting on its debt and leading the economy into a tailspin.
With both bills likely to fail, the debt ceiling debate will likely carry on into the weekend and will almost certainly lead to more talks at the White House.
Boehner signaled that he would still consider a deal under discussion last week that would have raised the debt limit in exchange for $3 trillion in cuts. That agreement included $800 billion in new revenue from economic growth and creating “efficiencies” in the tax code. Boehner walked away form those talks because Obama said he wanted to add $400 billion in tax increases to the equation. In recent days, however, the White House said that $400 billion is negotiable.
Reid acknowledged Tuesday that despite the dueling debt limit plans in both the House and Senate, the leaders were also talking about a plan that could actually clear Congress and end up on the president’s desk.
“There are further discussions going on right now,” Reid said. “I’m open for compromise.”
