Senate close to deal on budget impasse, but will House pass it?

Talks about the government shutdown and debt limit have centered around the Senate recently, but any deal will have to pass a Republican-controlled House with a powerful tea party wing.

|
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky arrives at the Capitol in Washington Monday. House Republicans are pushing him to drive a hard bargain on a government shutdown and debt limit deal, or else they will not support it.

The big story in Washington Monday was about lively efforts to strike a budget-and-debt deal to stave off a potential fiscal crisis. But the names in the headlines were President Obama and senators like Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, and John McCain.

That raises an important question: With time ticking down toward an Oct. 17 deadline, will House Republicans including tea party enthusiasts climb aboard to help a deal happen?

If not, it could be a bumpy ride ahead for financial markets and the political system.

After all, for a “deal” to really work – to actually reach Mr. Obama’s desk for a signature – it needs to be approved by the Republican-controlled House as well as the Senate. There are essentially three paths forward for the House.

Path 1: compromise. In this scenario, most Republicans vote to support a bargain that raises the debt limit and funds the government, even though the plan may not include the kind of concessions from Democrats that they’d like.

Path 2: let Democrats pass it. In theory, Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio could allow a bill to pass, even if most Republicans don't support it. There are 200 Democrats in the chamber, and only 217 votes are needed for a bill to pass, so Democrats would need only 17 Republican defectors. Mr. Boehner has said he’s opposed to letting the country go over a debt-limit cliff on Oct. 17 and default on Treasury obligations. But this scenario would mean breaking the so-called Hastert rule – the notion that a speaker should not bring a bill to the floor for a vote unless a majority of his caucus supports it. If Boehner goes this route and faces the wrath of a restive tea party wing, it could cost him his speakership.

Path 3: failure. This happens if the House rejects the Senate deal or makes changes that would require negotiations past Oct. 17. That wouldn’t necessarily mean the US fails to make payments due on its debt. (The Treasury might have wiggle room to avoid an official default.) But if Congress didn’t fix the mess by quickly reaching a successful House-Senate deal, the Treasury would soon be unable to pay all federal obligations.

That last scenario would have serious consequences, scaring stock market investors and putting brakes on economic growth, forecasters say.

Which path will it be for the House?

At this point, it’s hard to rule any of the three scenarios out. House Republicans have an incentive to avoid a mid-October breach of the debt limit, in which polls suggest they would bear the brunt of public blame. And Boehner has an incentive to try to get a deal that a majority of his caucus can support.

But in public comments, House Republicans don't sound eager to just rubber-stamp a boost in the nation's borrowing limit and a "continuing resolution" to fund the government and end the shutdown.

“We have got to deal with our deficit spending and ultimately our debt,” Rep. Diane Black (R) of Tennessee said on CNN Sunday. “That means structural changes to our entitlement programs. And so I really need to make sure that that's a part of [a deal], because we cannot continue to spend the way we are.”

Many Republicans agree that raising the debt ceiling to allow more borrowing should only be done with some new spending restraint attached.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R) of Ohio, on Fox News Sunday, said two principles continue to propel many in his party.

“We can't keep raising the limit on an already maxed out credit cart,” he said. “The second principle is this: Obamacare, the way it's being implemented, is unfair.”

That explains why Republicans in the House have urged their Senate colleagues to stand firm to win something significant from Democrats in this week’s fiscal bargaining.

Other House Republicans – notably ones who don’t come from politically “safe” conservative districts – are looking for a face-saving way out of the standoff over raising the debt cap and ending a partial government shutdown.

Senate negotiators from both parties cited progress in talks on Monday. But Obama had to shift a scheduled meeting with congressional leaders from Monday afternoon to Tuesday, to give bargainers more time.

They can’t take too long, however, with that Oct. 17 deadline drawing near.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Senate close to deal on budget impasse, but will House pass it?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/DC-Decoder/2013/1015/Senate-close-to-deal-on-budget-impasse-but-will-House-pass-it
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe