Top congressional Democrats and Republicans disagreed Saturday over whether any progress was being made on a deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling and avoid a potentially catastrophic default.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, held a 4 p.m. ET afternoon press conference in which they both said a deal was close. Two hours later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, asserted the claims of his Republican counterparts were simply "not true."
The Republicans are holding "meaningless press conferences" and "refuse to negotiate in good faith," Reid said. "The process has not been moved forward during this day."
"I'm more optimistic than my friend the majority leader," McConnell replied. "I think we've got a chance of getting there."McConnell spoke with Vice President Joe Biden several times Saturday, according to a senior administration official. Boehner talked to Obama Friday night, a GOP aide told CNN. Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, huddled behind closed doors with Obama at the White House.
The varied assessments of the state of play came shortly after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives rejected Reid's debt ceiling plan Saturday afternoon -- partisan payback for the Democratic-controlled Senate's rejection of Boehner's plan Friday night.
Reid's plan needed a two-thirds majority to pass, and with 246 "yes" votes it fell short. One hundred seventy-three voted against it. Most Democrats supported the measure; every Republican voted against it.
The Senate voted 59-41 Friday evening to table Boehner's measure -- effectively killing it only hours after the House approved it in a 218-210 vote. Most Republicans supported the Boehner plan while Democrats unanimously opposed it.
GOP leaders in the House were forced to delay the vote on Boehner's bill by a day while the speaker rounded up support from wary tea party conservatives. Boehner's deal with conservatives -- adding a provision requiring congressional approval of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in order to raise the debt limit next year -- was sharply criticized by Democrats, who called it a political nonstarter.
Boehner's "gone to the dark side," Pelosi said Saturday. "Let's go from the dark side to the bright side."
Despite the House's pre-emptive rejection of the Reid plan, Senate Democrats say they are moving forward with its consideration. The Senate is tentatively scheduled to take up Reid's proposal beginning at 1 a.m. ET on Sunday -- part of that chamber's arcane procedural path required to get something passed before the Treasury runs out of funds.
Any proposal put forward by Reid will ultimately need the support of at least seven Senate Republicans in order to reach the 60-vote margin required to overcome a certain GOP filibuster.
Forty-three of the Senate's 47 Republicans sent a letter to Reid Saturday promising to oppose his plan as currently drafted. Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Massachusetts' Scott Brown, and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski declined to sign it.
McConnell urged Reid early Saturday afternoon to hold a quick vote on his bill in order to clear the way for new talks.Your plan "will not pass the Senate. It will not pass the House It is simply a nonstarter," McConnell told Reid on the Senate floor. "Hold the vote here and now" and let's "not waste another minute of the nation's time."
Reid responded by accusing the Republicans of wasting time on the Boehner plan, and criticized the Senate GOP for not allowing his plan to be considered with a simple majority vote.
"The two parties must work together to forge an agreement that preserves this nation's economy," Reid said. "My door is still open."
Democratic leaders vehemently object not only to the balanced budget amendment, but also the GOP's insistence that a second debt ceiling vote be held before the next election. They argue that reaching bipartisan agreement on another debt ceiling hike during an election year could be nearly impossible, and that short-term extensions of the limit could further destabilize the economy.
Obama urged compromise Friday, and asked Senate Democrats and Republicans on Friday to take the lead in the congressional deliberations.
"This is not a situation where the two parties are miles apart," the president insisted. But "we are almost out of time."
As the political maneuvering continues, the clock continues to tick down. 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.
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 still differ on both the timetable and requirements tied to certain cuts.
Both the Reid and Boehner 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, proposed 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, however, would require a second vote by Congress to raise the debt ceiling by a combined $2.5 trillion -- enough to last through the end of 2012. 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, also calls for congressional passage of a balanced budget amendment before the second vote to raise the debt ceiling, which would likely be required at some point during the winter.
As for Reid's plan, a revised version he proposed Friday would reduce deficits over the next decade by $2.4 trillion and raise the debt ceiling by a similar amount. It includes $1 trillion in savings based on the planned U.S. withdrawals from military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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.
In addition, it incorporates a process based on a proposal by McConnell that would give Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling in two steps while providing Congress the opportunity to vote its disapproval.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment