Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) seemed to twist the knife on Republicans’ decision to surrender on its plan to exact policy concessions in exchange for a debt ceiling hike.
“This shows the absurdity and the lack of common sense and reasoning that Republicans in Congress have,” Reid said Tuesday after weekly caucus lunches.
Reid noted that the GOP’s previous plan included reversing cuts to military retirement benefits. The rub is that in the latest plan House Republicans pushed included something of an about-face. They wanted to reverse cuts to military retirement benefits that were included in the Ryan-Murray deal and were supported by House Republicans.
Republicans have suggested that the clean debt ceiling hike was the best option they had available at this point. Earlier on Tuesday Boehner said there just wasn’t enough votes for the GOP’s now-nixed plan.
“We don’t have 218 votes,” Boehner said. “When you don’t have 218 votes, you have nothing.”
