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Politico...
Debt
deal bill requested by House GOP
By Jake Sherman & John Bresnahan
7/22/11
Private
talks between Speaker John
Boehner and President Barack Obama have left GOP lawmakers on edge —
frustrated
about an information gap, ill prepared for quick review of any
potential
mega-deal and, perhaps most worrisome for Boehner, wary of anything
their party
leaders tell them.
Rapidly
shifting developments on
deficit talks Thursday left House Republicans surprised when they
learned that
Boehner and Obama had returned to discussions of a large deal, just a
day after
they voted en masse to send their Cut, Cap, and Balance bill to the
Senate,
where it is dead on arrival.
House
Republicans say they don’t know
what they can support other than what has already gotten their vote,
leaving
the contours of a passable deal an open question.
Rep.
Mike Kelly, a freshman
Pennsylvania Republican, summed up the rank-and-file feeling: They are
dedicated to the conservative plan to slash trillions of dollars in
spending in
return for a debt-limit boost — that Obama has vowed to veto and the
Senate is
unlikely to pass.
“People
ask me what I could accept; I
say I don’t know because I haven’t seen anything yet,” Kelly told
POLITICO in
an interview. “The only thing I know is the Cut, Cap and Balance plan.”
And
in a bad sign for Boehner, Cantor
and other House GOP leaders about how steep an uphill battle it will be
to get
a deal done, Kelly said the government funding debate taught his class
“we need
to look a lot deeper” at plans presented by leadership.
Late
Thursday, GOP and Democratic
sources said a short-term deal is more likely.
Regardless,
they have 12 days until
the Treasury says they’ll run out of money.
Illinois
Rep. Peter Roskam, the GOP’s
chief deputy whip, said there is “no panic” in Republican ranks yet
about a
potential default, despite the Aug. 2 deadline for boosting the $14.3
trillion
debt limit set by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner looming less than
two
weeks away.
Roskam
noted that the Cut, Cap and
Balance proposal would boost the debt limit by $2.4 trillion while
slashing
spending, implementing budget caps and requiring adoption of a
balanced-budget
amendment.
“They
voted to raise the debt ceiling
as part of Cut, Cap and Balance, which tells you where they are,”
Roskam noted.
“That’s a very significant change from 30 days ago. But it entirely
depends on
what the nature of a ‘grand bargain’ is.”
Roskam
added that “there’s no panic on
our side. I am not hearing any level of anxiety from members. There is
no
rattling the windows yet.”
In
fact, a presentation by a Standard
& Poor’s analyst to House Republicans on Thursday seemed to
strengthen GOP
resolve to cut as deep as they could into federal programs, including
popular
entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid.
However,
one veteran GOP lawmaker,
speaking on condition of anonymity, warned that as the Aug. 2 creeps
nearer,
that Republican confidence is likely to erode.
“The
closer you get to the deadline,
these guys will start looking for a lifeline,” said the lawmaker.
“These guys
don’t remember [the government shutdown of] 1995, but I do.”
Read
the rest of the story at Politico
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