Yesterday House Speaker Boehner dropped out of White House debt ceiling talks for the second time, and now it seems he plans to go it alone. This afternoon in a conference call with GOP lawmakers, he said he was working hard with other congressional leaders to put in place a framework for raising the debt ceiling and cutting spending by tomorrow. (Reuters cites a Republican aide who says a deal may be presented to Congress as early as Monday.)
Some sources claim that Boehner is considering a deal similar to the House’s “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan, which has already been voted down in the Democrat-controlled Senate. That obviously would not go over well with the White House, though the Speaker did say a larger $3 to $4 trillion deficit reduction package, that Obama had favored and that Republicans had scrapped, was back on the table. So where did all this newfound energy come from? Reports coming out of Washington show a White House and Congress increasingly worried about spooking the markets, already concerned about a downgrading of America’s debt if no deal is reached. The looming Sunday-Monday deadline, in particular, is specifically aimed at stabilizing the situation before the Asian markets open. Here’s to hoping that the fear gripping at lawmakers’ hearts will, for once, overpower their ideological stubbornness.
Boehner wants debt ceiling plan by Sunday [Politico]
