House Speaker John Boehner, R-West Chester, was planning to sketch out the proposal to rank-and-file Republicans during an evening closed-door meeting, with the goal of possibly moving such a bill onto the House floor on Friday, according to the aide, who asked not to be identified. After Treasury’s borrowing authority is exhausted November 3, under the Default Prevention Act, the federal government would only be allowed to issue new debt to cover principal and interest on debt held by the public or the Social Security trust funds.
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“We believe the debt ceiling will be raised in November, but we are basing that on nothing more than blind faith and would remind investors who shrug at another debt ceiling “boy cried wolf” charade that, at the end of the book, the wolf eats the boy”, he said. President Barack Obama has said he will veto the National Defense Authorization Act because Congress has not removed caps on domestic spending.
Uncertainty has deepened in the House as a Republican majority struggles with a leadership crisis after Speaker John Boehner announced he will resign.
Meanwhile, Senate leaders from both parties said they will wait for the Republican-controlled House to vote first before acting. The bill would raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for a number of conservative priorities, including the elimination $3.8 trillion in mandatory spending over the next decade (mandatory programs include things like Medicare, Medicaid, and many programs meant to assist the poor.) It demands a vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and a freeze on regulatory actions by the executive branch. The last debt limit hike in February 2014, for instance, passed with merely 28 Republicans. Of those, nine have left Congress.
“Today, I’m calling on Congress to prevent an economic meltdown, raise the debt ceiling and work together, in a bipartisan manner, to reduce our debt and deficit over the long term”, Tester said. Resolving the issue is at the top of Mr. Boehner’s list before he leaves Congress, a senior House GOP aide said Wednesday. “The debt ceiling has nothing to do with approving additional spending”.
He said there is a sense of urgency within Republican ranks and that Boehner would like to get a bill done before Ryan takes over the speakership.
So here we go again. “The reality is you can’t default. That money’s been spent”. It would establish procedures created to force the House to vote on $3.8 trillion in spending cuts over the coming decade, to add teeth to the non-binding budget Republicans adopted this spring.
“The idea that the U.S. Treasury would default on its T-bill obligation is absurd”, said Anthony Parish, vice president of research and portfolio strategy at Sage Advisory.
It is unlikely to advance in the Senate, where Republicans control 54 seats but need 60 votes to overcome procedural hurdles.
The Treasury already came close to missing payments in 2011 and 2013 when Congress delayed increasing the borrowing limit. It also isn’t expected to advance in the Senate.
“This legislation will ensure that the government pays its bills and does not default on its credit”. The debt prioritization bill is a ” political disaster” that exposes Republicans to claims that they “put Chinese bondholders ahead of USA veterans”, he said. That’s when he says his “extraordinary measures” for working around the current statutory debt limit will be exhausted.
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There’s a first time for everything, though, and even though the most extreme Tea Party solution to the nation’s debt problem would wreck the economy, their frustration over Democratic unwillingness to attack debt at all is not only understandable but defensible.
