The Republicans’ rightly-maligned Cut, Cap, and Balance plan was set up to fail in the U.S. Senate. But it wasn’t meant to happen at the exact same time as the House GOP held a press conference to rally in support of the bill, with the deadline for raising the debt limit now just over a week away.
But that’s exactly what happened Friday, when House Republicans cut short a press conference, and beat the gavel on a vote to table Cut, Cap, and Balance — a vote which was playing out right in front of their faces on closed circuit TV.
But before departing, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), ever sensitive to the needs of his conservative caucus, told reporters, there was “never an agreement,” with President Obama to raise the debt limit. “Frankly,” he said, “[we’re] not close to an agreement.”
So the clock will continue to tick into the weekend before a deal is reached, or everybody agrees to pursue a fallback plan.
“If they don’t like our version of Cut, Cap, and Balance…they can make amendments to it and send it back over,” Boehner hinted. What form that would take is still up in the air.
