Politico...
GOP split over McConnell plan
By Manu Raju & Abby Phillip
7/17/11 

The House and Senate are on a collision course this week over a compromise plan to raise the national debt limit, with enraged conservatives trying to derail the deal even if it risks an economic default. 

Top senators from both parties are increasingly focusing on an emerging proposal by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to give President Barack Obama the authority to raise the national debt ceiling with some strings attached. 

But the prospects for passage in the House are an open question, with conservative Republicans furiously fighting the plan and Democrats openly skeptical, ensuring that the fight will push up against the Aug. 2 deadline when the Treasury Department warns the U.S. would take the unprecedented step of defaulting on its loans. 

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said that Republicans are united on a conservative plan to give Obama a debt-limit increase once Congress passes a constitutional balanced budget amendment, sharply cuts the domestic budget and caps future spending - the so-called, “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan. 

But once that fails in the Senate this week, Kyl said both parties were moving toward the “McConnell-Reid” plan. 

“That’s what the Senate is proceeding with,” Kyl, a close ally of McConnell’s, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Now, the House of Representatives has to make its decision about what it will do. … At the end of the day, I don’t think there will be a default.” 

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin seemed to agree with that assessment. 

“The good news is that Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Mitch McConnell are sitting down and working out an approach that we are going to try to tackle this week in the United States Senate,” the Illinois Democrat said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “We are going to be working toward a way to escape the crisis that would come if we default on America’s national debt.” 

The move has only infuriated conservatives in both chambers who say that their leaders need to take a harder line and push for a deal that ensures there are trillions of dollars worth of cuts and for structural reforms to the budget to limit future spending. 

“The McConnell plan doesn’t have 218 Republican votes,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the conservative House Republican Study Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.” 

“No way, there’s all kinds of conservatives in the Republican Study Committee in the House conference who will not support the plan.” 

But the Republicans’ adamant opposition to raising taxes - some Democrats are seeking to do so by closing loopholes and taxing the wealthy and corporations - along with Democratic resistance on entitlement reforms, have essentially killed any chance of reaching a bipartisan budget deal to accompany a debt-ceiling increase. 

In response, McConnell last week proposed an escape hatch for his party. Under his proposal, Congress would give Obama the authority to request a debt-ceiling increase and allow lawmakers to vote to disapprove the move. Provided that two-thirds of Congress do not override the president’s veto of the disapproval resolution, Obama could raise the debt ceiling by some $2.5 trillion through 2012. 

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