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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Today's Second Debt Ceiling Update

There will be no vote tonight. Heritage Foundation and Freedom Works oppose the compromise while on the left Bernie Sanders the socialist senator from Vermont call it immoral. Neither Boehner nor Pelosi seem to be able to line up enough votes to pass the present bill. Put plainly everyone hates it. Republicans are especially upset because the enforcement "triggers" would gut the defense budget that has already been deeply cut. The triggers would also have the same effect on Medicare and Democrats are loath to endorse that. Conventional wisdom is that Boehner got a better deal than the one he had agreed to with Obama before Obama demanded more revenue.
Update
It could be the President may have to accept a short term debt ceiling rise and very short term at that. It would be days not weeks. Sounds something like what we heard about the Libyan war but in this case ones assumes both sides can agree on an outcome. The debt limit would be raised by attaching it to a defense construction bill that has been reported out of committee. All that would be needed would be to amend it with a few pages of text raising the debt limit and put it up for a vote. On the stalled agreement now before the House these points emerge:
$2.8 trillion in deficit reduction with $1 trillion locked in through discretionary spending caps over 10 years.
The Super Committee with 6 members from each party must report precise deficit-reduction proposals by Thanksgiving.
The Super Committee would have to propose $1.8 trillion in spending cuts to achieve that amount of deficit reduction over 10 years.
If the Super Committee fails, Congress must send a balanced-budget amendment to the states for ratification. If that doesn't happen, across-the-board spending cuts would go into effect and could touch Medicare and defense spending.
No net new tax revenue would be part of the special committee's deliberations.

1 comment:

  1. This whole committee thing stinks. Let's be honest. The recommendations of the committee are never followed and all they're doing is putting off the decision. What a mess.

    Scaring the military that their families aren't going to be getting their paychecks is beyond despicable.

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