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Politico...
Debt
deal compromise suggested by
Democrats
By Carrie Budoff Brown
7/28/11
Democrats
are aiming for a debt-limit
compromise similar to the House Republican plan, with at least one
major
difference: The second vote on raising the debt ceiling would not
depend on
Congress passing a broader deficit-reduction package.
The
shape of this potential compromise
meshes major elements of the proposals offered in recent weeks by House
Speaker
John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
and
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), according to Democratic
officials
familiar with the negotiations.
Under
the possible compromise,
Congress could still get a second crack at voting on the debt limit
within months.
But rather than linking the vote to Congress approving the
recommendations of a
new 12-member committee — as it would be in Boehner’s bill — Democrats
prefer
McConnell’s proposal that allows President Barack Obama to lift the
debt
ceiling unless two-thirds of both chambers override his veto of a
disapproval
resolution, the officials said.
To
force action on a deficit reduction
package, the White House would agree to strengthen the mechanism that
compels
Congress to pass the special committee’s recommendations, the officials
said.
The officials would not detail proposals for a so-called trigger that
acts as
an incentive for both parties to bargain in good faith and reach
agreement.
Before
the grand bargain talks
collapsed last week, Boehner and Obama had neared agreement on a series
of
triggers that would have forced approval of a broader deficit-reduction
package. If Congress failed to enact entitlement and tax reform,
Democrats
would have seen health spending reduced, while Republicans would have
lost the
Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, along with other tax changes.
The
administration has been discussing
options with congressional leaders but the extent to which House
Republicans
will compromise remains unclear.
The
Democratic officials argued that
the competing debt-limit plans are not markedly different, and a deal
can be
reached unless House Republicans refuse to consider alternatives to the
Boehner
bill.
The
president has not spoken to the
speaker in a few days, White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said in an
interview Thursday on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”
After
the votes Thursday night, “I
think there will be a whole new stage of the Senate and House having to
come
together to avoid August 2nd as being a day that has never happened in
the
U.S., and that is a day where we wouldn’t back up the full faith and
credit of
the United States,” Daley said.
Read
it at Politico
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