Anonymous GOP sources are telling Politico that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is looking to move a bill that would lift the debt ceiling before he steps down. According to the Politico report, published Wednesday, Boehner is still trying to negotiate a deal with the White House that would include the debt ceiling raise within a larger budget package. However, Politico’s sources say, if those talks fall through, GOP leadership is willing to put forth a standalone debt ceiling bill — a so-called “clean” bill — before a new speaker takes over Boehner’s gavel.
Boehner’s office did not comment on the Politico report.
The move is an effort by Boehner — that has been encouraged by Democrats and some moderate Republicans alike — to get a high-stakes, combustive debt ceiling vote off of Congress’ plate before a new speaker is elected. It would also ease the intense pressure on the new speaker from the conservatives hardliners who threatened a coup against Boehner before his resignation announcement. Additionally, a “clean” debt ceiling vote would represent a reversal of a strategy Boehner himself introduced in 2011, Politico notes, to use the debt ceiling vote to extract concessions on spending from Democrats in exchange for avoiding a default on the national debt.
Boehner has said he would like to step down by Oct 30. However, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) decision to drop out of the race to replace him has thrown the schedule for speaker elections in flux.
The Treasury Department has said that the federal government is expected to exceed its current borrowing limit on Nov. 5.
What he should really push for is an elimination of the notion of a “debt ceiling” entirely. Repeal the damned thing.
These G.O.P. politicians are always pushing the idea that the Government’s budget is somehow like your own household budget (though is most certainly is not). You know the drill - deficit spending is bad, debt is bad, and so on. And yet none of us has the option of incurring expenses, but then refusing to pay for them because we have too much debt. “I’m sorry, Capital One, but I can’t make any further payments on my credit card bill, because I’ve exceeded my debt limit.”
You bought it, you pay for it.
And come Halloween, if there is no Speaker, Congress closes it’s doors?
Because without a Speaker they can’t legally operate, which means they can’t elect a Speaker?
You know, there was a time when it was possible to imagine a situation where, in the fact of a deadlock between hardliners and non-hardliners within the majority party during an election for Speaker, a candidate came forward to break the deadlock by winning with votes from the other party and, thereafter running the House on a bipartisan basis. You know, a few committee or subcommittee chairs handed to the other party, bills given rules by the Rules Committee that can only win with votes from both parties, that kind of thing.
But let us be honest. Even in the days when it was possible to imagine such a thing, it is impossible to imagine such a thing happening if it made a Democrat the Speaker. Democrats might vote to put a less awful Republican in charge, but no Republican, at least since the end of the Progressive Era, would ever, ever, ever, ever in a million years vote to put a Democrat in charge. Ever.
Could it be that Boehner has joined the No Fucks Left to Give Club at the personal invitation of Barack HUSSEIN! Obama?
Newt!