Thursday, July 28, 2011

Dramatic turn in House debt vote

Endgame at hand, House Republicans on Thursday struggled to legislate to prevent an imminent government default, cutting nearly $ 1 trillion of federal spending. The Senate Democrats have promised to abolish the law - if he has - in the hope of forcing a final compromise.

As the discussion in the afternoon turned to night, GOP leaders made a high at the time inexplicable and president, John Boehner has convened a number of recalcitrant Republicans basis for his office.

. Asked what he had spoken and Boehner, Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz, said: "I think it's pretty obvious .. There are ongoing negotiations.".

Another Republican, Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, said he was unhappy Boehner was thrown into the requirement contained in previous legislation, Congress passed the balanced budget constitutional amendment and send to the states for ratification.

"Why are we negotiating with ourselves?" He asked.

It was not clear how long the delay may persist, but a spokesman for Boehner said the vote was still scheduled for later in the evening.

The White House quickly mocked Boehner are Republicans.

"The clock is ticking to the House on August 2 is the appointment of post offices, when leaders twist arms to vote for in vain. No wonder people hate Washington," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, Twitter.

Previously Boehner exuded optimism.

"Let us pass this bill and end the crisis," said the principal Republican opponent of the president in a controversial new era of divided government. "It increases the limit of debt and government spending cuts by a larger amount. "

President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the measure, and the debate in the House, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida is used as a "Republican plan for non-payment." He hoped that the Republican Party to "keep our economy hostage while forcing an ideological agenda" of the country.

Despite the strong rhetoric, there are signs that could be stripped stagnation.

"This area must have died before having a breakthrough," said Sen. Kent Conrad, DN.D. "We're at that stage now."

Wall Street suffered more losses than the Congress struggling to break the long impasse. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell for a fifth straight session.

The Treasury Department has moved forward with plans to hold its regular weekly auction of the values ​​of three and six months on Monday. However, officials offered no information on the measures to be taken if Congress did not raise the limit 14300000000000 debt of the nation, the next day.

Without a law signed on August 2, the Ministry of Finance has sufficient funds to pay all the bills of the nation. Administration officials have warned about the potentially catastrophic for the economy, if this happens - spike in interest rates, the stock market crash and the tightening labor market in a nation already struggling with unemployment more than 9 percent.

White House press secretary Jay Carney presented a compromise between the White House terms "significant deficit reduction, a mechanism, which Congress would have tough questions about tax reform and judicial reform and the removal of the roof of the debt for more than .. . in 2013. "

The latter seems to be the biggest obstacle.

House spending bill cuts $ 917 billion over a decade, especially the cost of maintaining hundreds of government programs by the Park Service of the Ministry of Agriculture, and foreign aid.

It also provides an immediate increase of $ 900 billion debt limit, which is less than half that required to satisfy the insistence that Obama is not repeated in the current crisis in the heat of the 2012 election campaigns.

An additional $ 1.6 billion borrowing authority would be conditioned upon the approval of at least 1.8 trillion of savings to be recommended by a newly created committee of lawmakers. These deficit reductions likely to come from cuts in benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare, and the revision of the tax code to generate additional revenue.

GOP Bills 917 000 000 000 dollars in cuts were ahead Tea Party trillion less than many legislators supported the rank and file Republican, but all that seemed almost unthinkable when they took power in the House in winter last with an agenda of reining in government. Many Republicans grumbled that the legislation does not cut deeper, and Boehner and the rest of the GOP leadership used their week cajoling reluctant to give the conservative votes needed to adopt it.

Reportedly, they succeeded.

"It gives us some heartburn, because it is not high enough," said Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., A first-term legislator who said he would vote for the draft law as the best available.

Another first-term Republican, Rep. Martha Roby of Alabama, said the bill was "far from perfect. But I do not have the luxury to write the plan myself, neither the President Boehner. "

While the White House and Democrats opposed the House bill, developed an alternative that contains similarities.

Prepared by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, it allows 2.7 trillion in additional borrowing authority for the Treasury. It also calls for reductions of $ 2.2 trillion, about $ 1 trillion Pentagon savings, assuming the completion of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even before the House voted, Reid has indicated that it will hold a vote to eliminate the legislation almost immediately.

"No Democrat will vote for a short term band-aid that would jeopardize our economy and put the nation back into this untenable situation a few months from now," he said.

With the House and Senate focused on the debt limit legislation on opposite ends of the Capitol, eleven religious leaders protest against budget cuts were arrested in mid-Rotonde between the two chambers.

Democratic Republic of Chelli Pingree, Maine House of Commons, said he prayed for those who are "more evil", the bill is being considered.

Rep. David Dreier, R-CALIF, fighting praying. - To avoid default.

The day's events marked the culmination of the struggle that began last winter, when the Ministry of Finance announced that the Congress must borrow more authority, and Boehner said the increase should have provided for measures to reduce future costs.

Early in the White House balked at the terms, then gave way. It eventually turned into a series of bipartite negotiations, one led by Vice President Joe Biden, Obama then another, and finally a round of golf that led to push for a "grand bargain" between President and Boehner.

Boehner said on Friday that it was calling off the talks, the launching of a week of frantic maneuvering the default time approaching.

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