House Republicans aren’t ready to raise the debt ceiling for nothing.
In their never-ending quest to get something in exchange for a debt limit increase, Republicans in the lower chamber are now considering a plan to attach two unrelated policy measures to a bill that would extend the nation’s borrowing authority to 2015.
One measure would attach to the legislation a nine-month “doc fix,” which would halt a Medicare payment reduction for doctors that is rooted in a 1997 budget law. The other would reverse a planned decrease in annual cost-of-living adjustments for military retirees still of working age.
Aides said Friday that leaders were deciding on their strategy, and could look to other policy ideas.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) in a letter Friday that the U.S. will hit the debt ceiling on Feb. 27.
Republicans have been stymied thus far in their efforts to get policy concessions from Democrats in the debt ceiling negotiations.
